


The Mishaps of Pizza Delivery

by popering



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drug Use, Fainting, Inspired by Real Events, M/M, Mentions of neglect, Mild Language, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recreational Drug Use, Running, Slice of Life, dumbassery, eren is a runner in this, ereri, its pretty mild, its weed, levi is his hot coworker, mentions of nicotine poisoning, mild harassment, pizza delivery, runner’s high, thats the best way to describe it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22798270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popering/pseuds/popering
Summary: Eren gets a job delivering pizza for the summer. It turns out a lot more...interesting...than he expected.
Relationships: Levi/Eren Yeager
Comments: 18
Kudos: 138





	1. Prequel

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is really self indulgent because it’s basically just me projecting/venting. The benefit to you is that I know what I’m talking about and you don’t have to suspend your disbelief because everything in this fic is based on something that happened to me at work. Almost everyone I work with is a teenage/early 20-something boy, including the managers. The dumbassery (including my own) is astounding and will be reflected in this fic.
> 
> This work has ‘chapters’ but I prefer to think of them as a chronologically ordered collection of short one shots. I’ve got a few in mind, and maybe i’ll update if more stupid things happen at work. I’ve still got one month left. 
> 
> Thanks for reading~

Eren was by no means devastated when he learned the news, though he was a little annoyed. 

Driving from the heart of the city back to his home in the suburbs after his sophomore year of college, he was surprised to see that the local diner he’d waited tables at when he was in high school and during the summers had been replaced by a gyro shop. He’d texted his old manager almost immediately after unloading his car only to learn that she’d quit before the restaurant actually closed. She said that the owners hadn’t been making enough money to pay her what she earned, so she’d quit and the store closed for good not even a week later. Eren knew that work had been unusually slow last summer, but he hadn’t thought the diner’s money troubles were that bad. 

He’d been eager to start working as soon as he came home, planning to make as much money as he could before the next school year started. Not only was his budget most likely going to be impacted, but now he had to restart the laborious process of finding a new job; updating his resume, looking for seasonal work, getting through job interviews and trying to get over the learning curve that comes with a new work environment. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

He supposed he ought to try and enjoy the few weeks he had to himself though. After all, the last time he hadn’t had to worry about school or work had probably been before he was legally able to get a job. However, the dark cloud that was his dwindling bank account cast a constant shadow over his fun, though he tried to push it to the back of his mind. He was still working on finding a new job; he had no intentions of slacking off. 

Eren, just like he predicted, quickly succumbed to boredom his first week home. He hated being idle. The only thing he had on his radar was training for his hometown’s marathon in the fall. It would be his first one. However, even on his longest runs it only took up two or three hours of his day (although, to be fair, he was never in much shape nor had the desire to do anything else for the rest of the day after those). He tried to take up as much time training and job-hunting as he could. 

That was how he found himself lacing up his running shoes, getting ready to jog a quick two miles or so to the library to meet up with Armin. He set off, really only breaking a sweat because he was running during the hottest part of the day. As the sun beat down on him, he thought about how he was killing three birds with one stone—keeping up with training, saving on gas money, and going to work on his resume. 

Twenty minutes later he found himself walking up the library steps, lifting the hem of his shirt up and wiping the sweat from his face. He stepped inside the small lobby area, internally thankful for whoever invented air conditioning and taking a quick detour to the water fountain. Not surprisingly, it was very quiet when he stepped inside. There were only a few people scattered sparsely around the shelves and tables—mostly older folk, which made sense considering it was the middle of a weekday and most people were either at work or still in school. He quickly found Armin sitting at one of the library computers, typing away. 

“Hey,” Eren said, minding his volume as he approached his friend from behind.

“Oh, hey! Long time, no see,” he replied, flashing Eren a smile as he turned around in his seat. 

“What’re you working on?” Eren asked as he sat down at the computer next to him.

“My last final. It’s not due until Thursday but I figured the quicker I finish it, the quicker summer can start,” Armin turned to face Eren, “What about you?” He asked as he watched Eren log on.

“Did you know Silver Star closed?”

“What—seriously?” Armin seemed genuinely shocked.

“Yeah, someone’s selling gyros there now,” 

“When did that happen? Why did that happen?” The blond boy inquired. Eren relayed what his former manager had told him via text.

“That sucks,” Armin sympathized, “What are you gonna do now? You gonna apply to work at that gyro place?”

“Doubtful. I’m not really into Mediterranean food” Eren explained, not that it was a deal-breaker or anything, “But first thing’s first—I gotta redo my resume,”

“You know,” Armin started, “we could always use more help at the store. Summer’s high time for pizza after all...I could talk to the GM,” 

Armin was talking about the pizzeria that he worked at. He’d been promoted to assistant manager the summer before, despite the fact that he was only 19 years old at the time and that he only worked during breaks from school, since he went to university out of state. 

“Actually...that would be great, if you could. I’d really appreciate it. Plus it’d be fun to work together,” Eren had been friendly with his coworkers at the diner, but there was no doubt it would be a lot more fun to work at the same place as his best friend. 

“Of course! You could be an insider with me. Or, if you really wanted to make some money, you could be a driver. We’re hiring both, so it’s up to you. Just let me know and I’ll talk to Hanji about it,” 

“Yeah, for sure! Thanks, Armin,” Eren smiled as he got to work. 

The two boys worked next to each other in relative silence for a while. Eren finished his resume fairly quickly and by then Armin was cleaning up the conclusion paragraph of his paper. They ended up staying there nearly two hours more, simply catching up after not having seen each other since winter break. Eventually, they were politely kicked out by the librarians, who informed them they were closing down for the day. 

Armin offered to give Eren a ride home, which the brunet respectfully declined. Now that the sun was lower in the sky the weather was perfect for running and Eren still had some mileage to cover. He took off after Armin peeled out of the parking lot, taking a detour and doing a few laps around the park before heading home. The whole time his head was filled with thoughts of him and Armin working together in the pizza shop and debating with himself about whether he wanted to work on the inside or be a delivery driver. He supposed he’d have to ask his friend more about what each position was like. Either way, he made it home with a smile on his face, excited and a bit relieved that he already had a job prospect before him.


	2. First Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren meets a few of his co-workers. One of them is smokin’ hot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to clarify that Levi is 22 in this. 
> 
> Also the update after this is gonna be long. This is like exposition to the exposition. Then we’ll get into real shenanigans. In the mean time, thanks for reading~

Eren talked to Armin some more and took a few days to think about it, but eventually he reached the decision that as much as he would’ve enjoyed working on the inside with his best friend, he really needed the extra money. Plus, it wasn’t like he would never see Armin just because he was a driver. If he was a driver.

As eager as he was to start his new job, he had to remind himself that he hadn’t actually been offered the position yet. Armin said he would talk to the manager about it, but that didn’t mean Hanji was automatically going to hire him. Plus he was sure he’d have an interview to get through, that is, if he wasn’t rejected outright after a glance at his resume. He had done well in school, but the only job he’d ever had had been his position as a server at the diner; it wasn’t exactly like he had relevant experience. It was just the same industry. However, he did have a squeaky-clean driving record and a car without a single scratch on it, which was more than he thought most people his age could say. 

His thoughts went back and forth like this all day, thinking of different reasons why he would or wouldn’t get the job—a product of nervous energy as he waited for Armin’s shift the next day. It was good running fuel. Or rather, he went running to quell the anxiety, as he found that it always worked quite well. 

The next day, Sunday, Armin texted Eren that he’d talked to Hanji about hiring him, and that she wanted to know more. Eren went in the same day and chatted with her for a few minutes while he dropped off his resume. 

On Monday, Hanji called him back and said she wanted to interview him for the position.

On Tuesday, he went in for his interview, which was less like an interview and more like a here-fill-out-your-employment-paperwork kind of thing. The only questions he was asked was how often he wanted to work and things Hanji needed to know for tax purposes. She also explained how much he was going to be paid. He’d make the same hourly wages as he did when he waited tables, but not only did he get whatever tips people gave him, he also got the delivery fee for each order he took. Eren didn’t know how many orders a driver typically delivered in a night, but by his calculations, he only had to take one order every hour to make federal minimum wage, and that didn’t even include tips. He had a good feeling about this.

By Wednesday, he was showing up for his first day of training. 

He walked through the front door around 2pm, his presence being announced by the little bell that rang above him. He was told he was only going to be there for an hour or two to watch a few mandatory training videos before his first full shift. 

“Hey, Eren! Come on through,” Hanji called out from behind the counter.

Eren walked through the door on the side that separated the kitchen from the lobby. There didn’t seem to be many people—customers or employees—around, although he supposed that wasn't unusual for the slow hours between the lunch and dinner rush. Hanji and Armin were in the kitchen, as was another guy with a buzz cut around his and Armin’s age.

“Hey, coworker,” his fair-haired friend joked as he cut a pizza and stuck it in a box.

“Oh, you’re the new guy, right? I’m Connie,” the kid with the buzz cut took off one of his gloves and held out his hand.

“Eren,” he returned as he shook it. 

Before they could exchange any more pleasantries, Hanji called him over to the computers in between the kitchen and the back of the store and showed him how to clock-in. Next, she had him follow her further into the back room. 

She practically flew around a large metal table towards a small office about the size of a walk-in closet, but Eren wasn’t paying very much attention to her when he nearly tripped over his own feet at the sight of a slight but muscular man carrying four trays that were half his size which, to be fair, wasn’t saying a lot. But by god, he was hot. Intimidatingly so. His jaw line was so sharp Eren wondered if the other man used it to cut pizzas. He stared at his flexed biceps as he came ever closer to Eren. The brunet wasn’t normally someone who drooled over others at first sight, but he could feel his heart skipping beats as he watched the smaller man approach. He stopped just short of him and, without breaking eye contact, leaned down to shove the trays under a table pushed up against the wall. His eyes were a steely gray and his gaze pierced through to Eren’s core, like he could see every secret the boy had ever had.

Eren’s slight shock must’ve shown on his face because the other man quirked a pierced eyebrow at him and said, “See something you like?”

“Oh! I just, uh…” Eren felt his face turn beet red. Fortunately for him, his new coworker quickly changed the subject.

“You’re the new kid, aren’t you?”

“Uh, yeah. Eren,” he stuck out his hand.

“Levi,” said the shorter man as he shook it firmly. Eren swore he felt some sort of electricity thrumming through him. 

“You better not scare this one off, Levi.” Hanji interjected from the other side of the table, “I’ve got a good feeling about him.” 

“Tch, please,” Levi rolled his eyes. He wasn’t  _ that  _ scary.

He turned around, walking back to the sink to continue doing dishes while Eren internally slapped himself when the first thing he noticed was how great Levi’s ass looked in those black jeans. God, what was wrong with him? He wasn’t usually like this.

He resolutely but regretfully turned his attention back to his new manager as she spoke to someone in the cramped office space. 

“Sorry, Jean, I’m kicking you out.”

“Hold on, I’m about to beat Connie’s high score.” Eren couldn’t tell what game he was playing. A few taps of the arrow keys later Jean started whooping.

“Ha! Suck it, Connie!” He yelled loud enough for him to hear from the kitchen.

“What!? Did you fucking beat my Tetris score?” He yelled back incredulously.

“Hell yeah I did!” Jean laughed. He entered his initials as a high-scorer in the game as A-S-S. 

“Damn it!” He heard the other boy shout, though it was mostly to himself. 

“Alright, I’m going out for a smoke,” he told Hanji. He nodded at Eren as he passed by but didn’t say anything otherwise. He kept it to himself, but he thought that Jean had a face rather like a horse. 

Hanji queued up the videos Eren was supposed to watch and told him to pay attention because there was going to be a quiz at the end of each one, and if he didn’t pass he would have to rewatch the video and do it again. Luckily for Eren, who was extremely distracted the whole time by the thought of his obsidian-haired coworker washing dishes just out of view, the quizzes were exceptionally easy. He finished about half an hour early and was disappointed to find that Levi was no longer in the store when he emerged from the office.

Hanji told him to clock out, then handed him his uniform shirt and cap that he was instructed to wear when he came in the next day. She also gave him a menu to study. He said goodbye to Armin and Connie before he left, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Levi in the back of his mind. It made him feel a little like a schoolgirl with a crush, but he hoped the other man would be working again tomorrow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also thank you to my beta reader Kailey, only she’s gonna be able to appreciate how loosely concealed the place names in this are.


	3. Ride Along

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Petra and Levi show Eren the ropes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay now we’re starting to get into the fun stuff. Fun fact: some of the dialogue is verbatim. Tags apply. As always thanks for reading~

Much to Eren’s unanticipated chagrin, his shift didn’t start until the dinner rush started, so he had all day to be nervous about his first day of work. He couldn’t help it—there was always something nerve-wracking about first days. Even in college, Eren was always nervous for the first few days of the semester, worried he wouldn’t be able to find his classes or, worse, end up in the wrong one. What was even worse was that he had done his training run that morning and had already showered, so all he could do now was stew in his anxiety and try to distract himself. He wondered again if Levi would be there today, but he couldn’t tell if that made his nerves better or worse. 

Luckily, Eren lived ridiculously close to the store so he didn’t hop in his car to leave until five minutes before he was due to be there. He made it with a minute to spare. He walked through the front lobby and into the back to clock in just in time. 

His first disappointment came when he remembered Armin had the day off today; the only person Eren recognized in the kitchen was Connie. His second disappointment, although he would deny he had any strong feelings about it, came when he searched the back only to find Hanji, Jean, and some more employees he didn’t recognize. Levi was nowhere to be found. 

“Hola, Eren,” Hanji greeted him, “I’m gonna start you on phones. Petra, can you do his training?” She spoke to one of the girls who was wiping down a stack of black lids. 

“Sure thing,” she wiped her hands off on the rag she was using and flashed Eren her best smile. Eren thought she looked kind and he felt a little bit of his anxiety dissipate. She walked past him and led him back to the line of phones and computers he’d just punched in on. 

“So, before we even get to phones, let me show you how our POS system works,” she logged in to the computer right away with her thumbprint and motioned for Eren to do the same on the next computer over. He did so, watched her hit ‘Orders’ and repeated that action too. He was taken to a new screen with so many buttons Eren was almost immediately overwhelmed.

“I know it looks like a lot but you’ll get the hang of it no time,” she sounded confident. Eren wanted to believe her. 

She showed him the buttons for the different sizes, crusts, and toppings you could put on the pizzas, as well as the specialties they had. She showed him what to do if a customer ordered a half and half pizza, and other common special requests they got, like making a pizza well-done or without sauce or cheese. He thought it was confusing that some crusts only came in small, large, and extra large, whereas other crusts came in only small, medium, and large. She went through where their salads, sides, desserts, and drinks were located, and showed him how to write notes on orders if there wasn’t a button for it. She gave him a few minutes to himself to look through and study what she’d shown him and then pretended to order things while he typed up what she said for practice. 

In the middle of her second pretend order, the phone actually rang. 

“Perfect, you can listen in.” She picked it up and gestured for Eren to, once again, do the same as she started her spiel. 

As he picked up the phone closest to him and brought it to his ear, he barely had time to register another beeping noise that occurred before he heard what he assumed was the back door opening. He leaned back a little to see what was happening, just in time to see Levi walk in with two of those insulated pizza bags. Eren turned away and went back to watch what Petra was doing as soon as their eyes met, though he couldn’t keep a small smile off his face. Even though he was watching Petra’s quick fingers tap away at the screen as the lady on the phone relayed her order, he was keenly aware of Levi standing at the computer next to him, their shoulders gently brushing against each other. It was brief, and Levi soon disappeared into the back once more. 

When the phone call was over, Eren thought that even if he had been paying more attention, Petra had been moving too fast for him to really learn anything. 

“Do you want me to go through that slower?” She asked, as if reading his mind.

“Yes, please,”

“Okay, so…” she pulled a piece of paper off the bulletin board on the wall above them, “this is our phone script,” 

She went through it step by step. She explained that most of the people who called had ordered from them before, so their names and, if they’d gotten delivery, their addresses were already inputted, but it was still important to double check since they often delivered to public places, like churches, businesses, and recreation centers. Petra showed him how to check if the address was in the delivery zone, and what store they should call instead if it wasn’t. A list of the different stores and their phone numbers was also pinned to the bulletin board. 

She explained the different discounts they had each day and how to apply coupons. They skipped taking the actual order since that’s what they’d spent the previous half hour doing and showed him what to do if someone wanted to pay for their delivery with a credit card, which is what happened nine times out of ten, according to Petra. 

Eren listened in on the calls whenever one came in throughout his training. Then, Petra tested him by calling the store on her cell phone. Eren logged off and then back onto the computer, and Petra was listed as a wireless caller on the screen showing all the phone lines. She told him to make sure the caller ID matched the phone number on the computer before clicking on it. Since she was a ‘new customer’ Eren asked her name and address, chuckling to himself and checking the map to make sure it was in the delivery zone. She gave her order and Eren did his best, but he had to ask her to repeat part of it, then he read back the order to her to confirm. Since Petra obviously didn’t intend on paying for this order, she said she’d pay with cash, and when the interaction was over she deleted the order on the computer and in the kitchen.

“That was good! I think you’re ready to take an order by yourself,” she told him. Eren was still a bit overwhelmed with all the information he’d just been bombarded with, so he tried not to look too worried about being left on his own, but Petra must’ve seen through it because she added, “Don’t worry, we’ll just switch places the next time a call comes in. You take the order and I’ll listen in, and I’ll help you if you need it.” 

Eren was more relieved than he cared to admit. He was glad Petra was so willing to help him. He knew he was probably getting in the way of the other work she had to do, so he was grateful. 

Eren took a few calls with Petra’s assistance, with Petra introducing him to some more of the employees he hadn’t met yet in between. He met Reiner, who looked more like Hanji’s age. He was also an assistant manager like Armin. He also met Bertholdt, who was busy making one of the pizzas Eren had just taken the order for. 

He met another girl with large brown eyes and long, similarly colored hair that looked soft to the touch. She introduced herself as Sasha as she shoved a salad into a paper bag and popped a cherry tomato in her mouth. 

There was only one other person in the back besides Hanji. She had a similar size and complexion as Armin and even though she seemed busy trying to fit four pizza boxes into a bag and grabbing a pair of two liters out of the fridge, she made sure to shake Eren’s hand and tell him her name. Krista. 

She left at the same time both Jean and Levi were coming through the back door.

“You’re telling me that pothead gave you seven dollars?” Jean was fuming.

“Sure did,” Levi waved around a piece of paper between his fingers as confirmation.

“Every time I go to that guy’s house he gives me two!” The taller man complained.

“That’s because you look like a cop, Jean.” 

“What? Why do I look like a cop? What do you look like?” 

“Apparently, a stoner,” Levi rolled his eyes the more he thought about it. 

Jean shook his head and mumbled, “He’s got it backwards.” Levi scoffed to himself. 

Just then they were interrupted by Hanji, which Eren was grateful for seeing as he was just standing there awkwardly, not knowing what to do with himself since no phones were ringing. 

“Levi, will you take Eren on a couple of ride-alongs, you know, show him the ropes? And what side work he should be doing. You can show him how to close.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Levi waved her off.

“Oh, better buckle up your seatbelt, Eren,” Petra elbowed him gently in the arm and chuckled, “Levi’s the fastest driver we have. I’m surprised he hasn’t accidentally gotten himself killed yet. Or at least pulled over,” she whispered conspiratorially. 

“That’s because cops don’t want to pull us over,” Levi interjected, “That’s also why Ymir keeps quote-unquote forgetting to take the sign off her car at the end of the night—so she can go fifty down Macon and get home faster.”

Eren saw Reiner approach with two red boxes in his hand, “Delivery,” he informed them, and seeing as all the drivers and then some were crowded near the hot-box, he simply elected to place it on the table. 

“Come here, Eren,” The raven-haired man motioned him over to the boxes. Eren started to step closer when Jean raised a complaint. 

“No way, that one’s mine. I pulled in first and you know it.”

“Kiss my ass, Jean. You forgot to return yourself.” The taller man looked behind him at the computers and saw his name was still highlighted in red.

“Shit,” he exclaimed as he turned away from them. 

By then Eren was standing next to Levi as he pulled the make receipt out of the box. He was standing so close he could smell the tiniest hint of cologne on the smaller man. Eren tried not to swoon. 

“Normally Reiner, or whoever, will bring back the deliveries and stick them in the hot-box,” he motioned to the glass door radiating heat behind them, “And I usually check the receipt in the box to see if I need to get any drinks, salads, or sauces, although the computer will also tell you when you dispatch yourself. This person got a side of ranch with their bread which…” Levi opened the top box, “is already in here. So we’re good to go. Make sure you check—most of the time the person on cut side puts the sauce in with the bread but someone doesn’t and I haven’t figured out who it is yet,” his eyes narrowed threateningly. 

He moved to the side and grabbed an insulated bag hanging from a hook on the wall nearby and neatly slid the boxes inside. He walked to the computers and Eren followed closely on his heels. 

“There’s only one delivery on the board right now, but normally, and especially on the weekends, you should check to see if you can take any doubles, or if you're really lucky, triples. All you have to do is highlight the orders,” he clicked the only one up there, “and hit ‘Map Order’. Then if there are two or more orders close together on the map, you can take them both as long as they’re both already in the hot-box or if the orders were made within like, 10 minutes of each other. Just make sure you take them in the order they were made,” he explained.

“Got it,” Eren nodded.

“Now, you don’t need the map to tell you this, but by the fact that this person’s address is only two digits long, they’re fucking rich. We’re probably going to The Winds,” he hit ‘Map Order’ and sure enough, they were.

Eren’s tiny house sat just on the border of The Winds. Actually, they technically were connected to the water lines there. The Winds was where the richest people in his suburb lived. Their houses were ridiculously huge and sat on an over abundance of land. In fact, in order to build a house in The Winds, the plot had to have enough acreage to house horses as well. He suddenly wondered if the tap water millionaires drank was any better than the tap water the other townships got.

Levi resented the people who lived there, but he also felt entitled to their money. Anywhere else, he was perfectly alright with a two or three dollar tip; he understood—he wasn’t living under the best circumstances either, money-wise. However, in The Winds, any tip five dollars and under was cheap in Levi’s book. He specifically recalled delivering a pizza to a family that had more horses in their yard than the dollar bills they’d given him. The second time he delivered a pizza there, he didn’t expect much and therefore he wasn’t as disappointed, but the father had yelled loudly for his son who coincidentally had the same name as Levi, and not only did that scare the shit out of him as he got back into his car, he felt like the universe was mocking him—like that could’ve been him in another life. As it was, his upbringing couldn’t have possibly been more different. 

“So, anyway, when you’re ready to go, just highlight the order and your name and hit ‘Dispatch.’ The receipt will come out here...” The shorter man walked back to where Sasha had been making salads earlier. “They’re paying with a credit card, so you get the itemized receipt and this one, which they have to sign,” he showed him the smaller slip then added, “Well, I suppose they don’t technically have to sign it, but they’ll put your tip on it, so make sure you don’t lose it. Let’s go.”

He walked quickly back to the bag with the order in it and stuck the receipts in the clear plastic sleeve. Eren resolutely kept his eyesight above Levi’s hips as he followed him out the door and into the back parking lot where the other man opened the door to a sleek black sedan. 

“Normally the pizza gets shotgun,” Levi stated as he opened the door behind the driver's seat, “but I guess I can make an exception for you.” 

Eren’s lip quirked up as he slid into the passenger seat. He noticed Levi’s car was exceptionally clean, although it smelled strongly of pizza and...just a hint of something he didn’t care to name. 

“Can you hand me the long receipt?” Levi asked politely of Eren.

The taller boy reached behind Levi to grab it off the pizza bag and didn’t fail to notice how their fingers brushed when he passed it to him. Levi looked at the receipt and then his phone, plugging the address into his GPS. He then stuck his keys in the ignition and a—Eren thought it was French, but he wasn’t sure—rap song started blaring as the car rumbled to life. Levi quickly turned the volume all the way down. 

He shifted the car into reverse and backed out of his parking spot quick and smooth, shifting into drive without even pausing to brake. 

“You do have to be careful going around this corner, since we’re always coming in and out,” Levi mentioned as they turned left around the building and into the main parking lot out front. Eren simply hummed in response. 

As they approached the edge of the lot, Levi spoke again, “Luckily, rush hour’s over, because let me tell you it’s a bitch trying to turn left out of here,” he stretched his head forward to look left and right. 

The lot opened directly onto the main drag of Eren’s suburb, which was three lanes wide if you didn’t include the chicken lane.

“What most people usually do is try to get in the left-most lane and turn left around the grocery store, but you can also,” he paused, pulling out suddenly to go left as he slammed the accelerator, “turn right and make a loop around the bank parking lot,”

Eren was taking notes in his mind. 

“So,” Levi continued, “What made you choose this store? You live close by?” He questioned. 

“Yeah, actually, I live right over there,” Eren pointed out and over to the left, “at the bottom of the hill on Wilmington. The blue house,” he added. 

“Oh. I know what house you’re talking about. You guys have a really nice yard,” Levi pulled into the left most lane.

Eren beamed, “Thanks! My mom really likes gardening. She’s really good at it too.”

“I’ll say,” Levi signaled to turn left, “Well if you live around here you must already know the roads pretty well then.”

Eren rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, “Actually, I kind of suck at the geography of this place. I only know how to get to places I go a lot, like school or my friend’s houses. Honestly I don’t even know the street names that well, I just know where to go,”

“You’re only here til the end of the summer, right?”

Eren nodded.

“Well I promise you, by the end of the summer, you will know far, far more about these streets than you ever wanted to know.” 

“What do you mean?” How much could you know about a street?”

“I mean like, if you’re sitting at the light trying to turn left on Wyllis Field Lane...” 

Eren didn’t know where that was.

“...The one by the grocery store we just passed,” the shorter man clarified, “the light will turn green as soon as the crosswalk countdown gets to 0.” 

Well, Eren had figured out that one already. 

“Unless it’s after 8pm, in which case you have to wait an additional ten seconds afterwards. Regardless of the time, the next streetlight after that will always be red, but if you drive at exactly eighteen miles per hour, by the time you get to the light it’ll turn green and you won’t actually have to stop.”

Eren tried to absorb that information. He didn’t really know how to respond to that, so a neutral silence fell over them. 

Levi shifted the car into low gear so he wouldn’t have to completely ride his brakes down the steep, winding hill that was at the end of this road. By now the sunset was bringing out a variety of vibrant colors in the sky, which seemed so big and wide in the fields that surrounded the sides of the road. Eren looked out the window to a house that looked a bit more like a castle and saw three grade-schoolers all sitting on one horse. 

Levi noticed it too. It boggled his mind. All of the children here were the real life versions of spoiled rich kids who asked for a pony for Christmas and actually got one. He wondered what the hell these people did for a living. 

Hardly five minutes later Levi hung a right into a driveway by a mailbox marked with a ‘16’. He was able to pull all the way up to the front door.

“Another thing to remember: whatever parking situation you get yourself into, you’re gonna have to get yourself out of, most likely backwards. The other good thing about rich people is they usually have easy driveways to get in and out of, though that’s not always the case,”

Eren noticed this driveway had two entry and exit points. It basically formed a small loop off the side of the road. 

Levi threw the car in park, grabbing the pen in his cup holder and getting out. Eren followed suit, walking around to the driver’s side of the car.

“You know how in commercials, the pizza man is holding the bag with the pizzas inside when they get to the door? Well, I don’t know what the other drivers do, and don’t tell anyone I said this, but I have tiny-ass hands and there’s no way I can hold more than one pizza box at a time while also holding the bag. Not to mention bringing the bag is just a pain in the ass when the door is literally right there,” He explained as Eren watched him set the two boxes on top of the bag, fold the long receipt in half to stick into the box, and set the shorter receipt along with the pen on top.

Eren continued to follow Levi as he walked up to the door, ringing a doorbell that was equipped with a video camera. He’d seen commercials for them on TV.

“Rich people also tend to have these, and I love them because you know they actually work. Seems every other doorbell’s only got a fifty-fifty shot of being functional,” 

A few seconds later a carefully put-together woman opened the door. If she was surprised to see Eren there as well, she didn’t show it. 

“Hello,” she smiled.

“Hi,” Levi held the pizza against his torso and held out the pen and receipt for her, “if you could just sign this for me…”

The woman took it and scribbled on it against the doorframe, making large swirls on the signature line. 

Levi took it back without looking at it, saying, “Thank you very much,” and “have a good night,” as he handed over the boxes. 

The two boys piled back into Levi’s car. He took a look at the receipt, nodding to himself and then slipped it in the back of a whole stack of receipts kept together with a paper clip that had been hiding in the center console. 

“How much did she give you?” Eren inquired.

“Six and some change,” to make the total an even thirty dollars, he noticed. Levi decided he respected her. He’d just made a little over ten dollars on that order alone. 

“How much do you usually make every night?” The younger boy hoped he wasn’t being rude by asking. 

“Depends. On a lot. I’ll tell you one thing though, if there’s one job where the wage gap is reversed, it’s pizza delivery. The girls, especially Krista, are fucking rolling in it. But, uh…” Levi looked over at the younger man, blatantly checking him out, “you’re pretty cute, yourself. Especially in that hat,” which Levi immediately reached out to flip off his head, “so you should make a decent amount,” he commented offhandedly. 

Eren’s mom had told him the same thing when she saw him in his uniform for the first time, but it was a whole different ball game hearing the words come out of Levi’s mouth. Eren scrambled to set his hat back on straight, using it as an excuse to block his bright red face from the older man’s view. He could feel his blush up to the tips of his ears. 

“Anyway, today’s been...alright. For a Thursday. I’ll be happy if I make out with sixty at the end of the night,” 

“How many deliveries have you taken so far?” 

“Um, I think that was my sixth one of the night. There weren’t any on the board when we left but hopefully I’ll get at least one or two more,” Levi checked the time on the dashboard. 7:38pm. He had a little over two hours left. 

When they got back to the store, Levi told Eren what the code to open the back door was and reminded him that he’d have to return himself from dispatch on the computer or it would never be his turn to take a delivery. Eren watched as Levi kept messing around on the computer—there were three more deliveries up. 

“Fuck, are you kidding me? I hate going out there,” Levi grumbled loud enough for just him and Eren to hear. 

“What? What is it?” Eren leaned in closer over his shoulder to see what it could be. Levi’s hair tickled his cheek. 

“Krista can take the next two as a double so we have to go all the way out to Cheryl Creek lane. I fucking hate getting on 265. I don't know why we deliver out there. It’s like four exits out and I’ve never delivered a pizza anywhere else even near there,”

“Weird,” Eren said.

“Tch,” Levi shook his head, “Whatever...it’s not up yet so I guess I’ll show you what to do in the meantime,”

They walked back to the large metal table where Krista was wiping off lids. There were also a few stacks of black pans scattered around the table. Levi pulled some medium sized disposable gloves out of a box. Eren grabbed a pair of larges. The shorter man examined the pan on top, then the one underneath, then the one underneath that.

“Did you scrape these already?” He asked Krista.

“Uh, I think Jean scraped those,” she pointed to the stack Levi had been examining, “I don’t think he got to the other ones yet,”

“That explains why they’re shit,” he mumbled to himself, “Okay, I’m gonna show you how to scrape pans so you can start on those and I can sort through Jean’s shitty attempts,” he said to Eren.

Levi pulled over another pan identical to the ones on the table, but it was half full of used grease and left over pizza toppings. He made a face as he wiped each side of a flat piece of metal on the edges of the pan.

“It’s pretty simple, and also pretty disgusting,” which is why he was making Eren do it, although he didn’t say that.

“Basically,” he took a pan and the piece of metal, “You just scrape all the shit off the sides,” pieces of burnt...something or other fell onto the bottom of the pan as Levi dragged the edges of the metal against the sides, “and scrape the oil out,” he turned the pan on its side so all the oil and burnt scraps fell into the other pan. He handed Eren the scraper.

Eren got to work as Levi started sorting through the pans Jean had supposedly scraped, making one stack that met his expectations and one stack that he decided would have to be redone. Eren wasn’t really sure if he was doing a good job or not, it seemed like it was impossible to get everything out. Actually, the outside of the pan seemed dirtier than the inside. Eren cringed when he saw just how dirty his gloves were.

“Are these okay?” Eren asked as he slid a few pans over to Levi so he could check.

“Actually, yeah. Good job,” he praised mildly. 

Eren smiled. When he turned to keep scraping, he noticed Krista’s jaw was on the floor.

“What?” Eren asked, confused but still trying to seem friendly about it.

“I’ve never heard Levi say someone else’s cleaning job was good,” The smaller girl revealed. 

“Hey, I’m probably the only one keeping this place from getting shut down from too many health violations. It’s not my fault a majority of the people here don’t know how to do their jobs,” he complained. His preference for cleanliness was honestly more of a curse than a blessing. Levi liked things cleaned properly, but because he was so good at it Hanji made him close almost every shift he worked.

“Sure you’re not just overly anal?” Krista teased.

“Tch, don’t you have a pizza to deliver?” Levi retorted.

“Not yet. Still waiting on order number two,” 

Levi rolled his eyes. He put the pans he deemed unclean back in the stack Eren was working on. He took the ones he thought were clean enough and the ones Eren had just finished and started ladling fresh corn oil into them.

They worked as a team, Eren passing the freshly scraped pans to Levi who refilled them and organized them under the table. Eventually Connie came back with Krista’s second order, and not even a minute later returned with Levi’s. 

Levi made Eren look over the order and get any extras that were required. He also let Eren dispatch him and gather the receipts. Levi didn’t bother using his GPS; he already knew where he was going. Cheryl Creek was a large apartment complex nestled back between a gas station and a Waffle House, and no matter what address you typed in the GPS took you down the wrong road. Levi had figured that out the hard way. He was just glad he would be able to spare Eren the confusion. 

With a relatively long drive ahead of them, even with Levi speeding like a mad-man on a nearly empty highway, they found themselves chatting the miles away. 

Levi told him that even though he did truly dislike going to Cheryl Creek, it was only because he hated having to change lanes so often on this particular highway, although it wasn’t so bad if it wasn’t rush hour. He explained that all the drivers hated going on deliveries that were so far away because it took up more time, and therefore they had less time to make more deliveries. However, he confessed that he actually didn’t mind going on long deliveries because he was just happy to be out of the store. He often found it too loud and too chaotic inside, plus if you were out near closing time that usually meant the insiders did the closing work for you. 

Eren talked about his friendship with Armin and how he had helped him get this job. 

“I see. Armin’s a good kid. He’s one of the only people who works here who’s not a dumbass,” Levi had said. 

The delivery was simple and Levi’s tip was more than what he had expected from this part of town, though it was nothing worth bragging about.

The rest of the night continued on rather uneventfully. They returned to the store where Levi continued to show Eren what his side and closing work was until Hanji unfortunately brought back a delivery 10 minutes before the closing time. Unsurprisingly, it was to the hospital just down the street. Levi sped the whole way there on empty roads after the shorter man instructed Eren to call the customer and ask if they wanted to meet in the hospital lobby. Eren had barely hung up when Levi was turning into the parking lot. 

By the time they got back to the store, the kitchen and lobby lights had been turned off, although you could still see a glow from the lights on in the back. Levi parked his car behind the building, retrieving the paper-clipped receipts and a plastic baggie full of money from inside the center console. 

“You ready?” Hanji asked as they stepped inside. Levi simply nodded, wanting to just go home already. He handed her the receipts as they all walked to the register. Levi took the money out of the bag and started sorting it by bills as Hanji took the receipts and added the tips onto the bills of each order. 

“$26.62, please,” Hanji said.

Levi pulled another wad of cash from his back pocket, plus seven dollars from the bills he’d just sorted. Hanji handed him thirty eight cents. 

“Can I actually get two tens,” he said as he passed Hanji one of the twenties in his hand. He counted it all; $62. Not bad. 

Levi took one of the tens and a twenty and subtly held them out towards the taller woman, “You got anything on you right now?” He asked.

“Oh, I’ve got something even better!” Hanji exclaimed, “clock out and meet me out back,” she said. Eren looked between them, unsure of what they were talking about but not willing to ask. 

Hanji quickly disappeared out the back door as Eren followed Levi back to the computers.

“Remember, Eren, the most important thing to do when you clock out is lie about the cash tips you made. Social security is the government's biggest scam,” he said suddenly. 

“Oh. What do you normally put?” Eren asked as Levi typed a $3.00 where it prompted him to report other tips.

“I usually put the number of cash tips I got as the dollar amount. So if I got $9 from two tips, I put two. If I made $12 for whatever from three tips, I put a three, et cetera. It looks suspicious if you always put zero,” the raven-haired man explained. 

Eren clocked out as well, though he really did have no tips to report. The taller boy was about to open his mouth to bid his coworker good night, but Levi beat him to the chase.

“C’mon, let’s go see what Hanji’s so excited about,” he invited.

Just because Eren hadn’t asked didn’t mean he wasn’t curious. 

They found their manager rummaging around the backseat of her tiny, beat-up red car which was...cluttered to say the least. She turned around beaming, holding two ziploc bags, each with a large chocolate chip cookie inside. 

“I just made these last night,” she announced, “First one’s on the house,” she tossed one to Levi, who easily caught it against his chest. 

She held out the other towards Eren, “Do you want a special cookie too, Eren?”

He was about to ask what made the cookie special, fleeting suspicions racing through his mind when Hanji continued, “It’s got about twenty milligrams in it, give or take,” 

Ah. So his suspicions had been correct.

Eren wasn’t stupid; he’d been to plenty of parties in his two years at college. However, he preferred mostly to stay away from mind-altering substances, especially after he got drunk for the first time and spent most of the night and the next morning hugging the toilet.

“Um, I’m alright, thank you,” he respectfully declined. He didn’t see Levi raise an eyebrow off to his side. 

“Suit yourself, then. I’ll see you both tomorrow,” Hanji waved them off with a smile.

Eren and Levi said good night to each other as well as the taller boy walked around to the front of the store where his car was parked. He just sat there for a moment, honestly a little shocked. If you’d asked him how he thought his first shift at work would end, he certainly wouldn’t have answered with his manager offering him drugs.

He suddenly had no idea what to expect for the rest of the summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The difference between me and Eren is I accepted the cookie. Also I don’t get hungover. Feel free to leave a kudos if you’d like~


	4. A Slow Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren hangs with the boys and learns something interesting about Levi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who’s got hip bursitis from running too much :P Guess what may or may not happen to Eren in a future chapter :PP
> 
> I’m putting more effort into this than I originally intended but tbh I’m having fun and that’s all that really matters. Thanks for reading~

Eren was a quick learner and by his first few weeks on the job he understood what Levi meant when he said he would learn more about the roads than he would care to. However, Eren found a lot of it rather interesting.

For example, he noticed that houses on the corner of two streets usually had their driveways connected to the street not listed as their address. Once he realized that, he stopped having to turn around after accidentally passing his destination. 

There were plenty of streets Eren had never bothered to go down because he never had a reason to—they were mostly residential neighborhoods after all. The more deliveries he took, the more he was able to connect all the streets together in his mind. Rather than always retracing his steps to get back to the store after a delivery, he started finding shortcuts and, especially when taking doubles, making loops to get back. The way he navigated the streets became more efficient, which was important considering the way he was reimbursed for mileage and gas was not the standard odometer reading at the beginning and end of every shift (instead, they averaged the distance per delivery from a sample, so you were reimbursed based on the number of deliveries you took).

He knew which streets and areas of town deer liked to appear, as well as where particularly hazardous puddles formed on the side of the street when it rained. He realized what Levi had said about the length of address numbers was true. Addresses with one or two digits typically belonged to the uber-rich. Three digit addresses were rare, so Eren had yet to come to any conclusions on them. Four digit addresses were typically regular residences, occasionally not. Five digit addresses were more likely than four digit ones to be businesses, although they could be regular houses, of any economic standing, as well. 

He also quickly realized how annoying stop signs became, especially when you had to stop at the same ones ten times or more in a single night and rarely was anyone else there. By the end of the night Eren often found himself rolling quickly through the empty intersections as opposed to stopping completely. There was no point when no one was there, and he could get back to the store quicker.

The most important thing he probably learned, though, were the parking rules in the different neighborhood squares. It was only during rush hour that it was illegal to park on the street there, but he also knew that the minute it turned six o’clock, someone would be parked in the right lane without fail. He learned to always drive in the left lane. It was easy to tell who lived around here and who didn’t, depending on what lane they drove in during a particular time of day. When Eren was in a good mood, he stayed behind drivers in the right lane, waiting for them to crest the hill and see they would have to merge, and then he would let them over. When he was in a hurry, or stressed, or otherwise in a bad mood, he sped past them without a spare thought. 

Of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Eren. More than once he forgot a salad or a drink and had to waste time going back out to a customer’s house or workplace without so much as earning a delivery fee from it. It often happened at what Eren considered to be the worst possible time—the first delivery when he was running a double. The first time it happened he didn’t know what to do; go back and get the salad or deliver the second order. He figured there wasn’t much point in it being a double if he went back to the store, so he raced to the second house and just as quickly raced back and forth between the shop and his first delivery. He felt bad for taking so long, but the customer was nice and didn’t seem too put out by it.

Another time early on in the summer he encountered nearly standstill traffic on his way to a delivery. It wasn’t a very far delivery and he was about halfway there when he encountered it. It was rush hour on a Friday after all, but this was rather ridiculous. He moved slowly, and he couldn’t decide if he should wait it out—hoping it might clear soon—or if he should, if he even could, abandon his route and look for another way. It seemed every minute he waited he became more sure it would clear up soon, but he also became more tense with every minute it didn’t. In his indecision he called the coworker he was most familiar with—Levi—hoping he wasn’t out on a delivery. 

“Hello?” The older boy answered.

“Hey, it’s Eren, sorry, I got your number from the scheduling app Hanji uses,” he explained.

“Oh. What’s up?” 

Eren relayed the conundrum he was having.

“Where are you now?”

“I’m on Wilmington, just a little ways past my house actually,”

“And where’s the delivery going?”

“It’s going to Queensland-Dakota road,”

“Okay,” Levi thought for a moment, “turn around and go through The Winds. You know where Domes road is, yeah?” 

“Yeah, I do,” Eren confirmed.

“Go down there, turn at the first left and when you get to the stop sign, turn left again and you’ll be on Queensland-Dakota,” 

“Okay, thanks a lot, Levi,” Eren felt the relief course through him.

“Don’t mention it. And Eren?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful in this rain. It’s really easy to hydroplane on those steep, winding roads,”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful,” Eren promised.

“Okay, see you later,” Levi called through the receiver.

“Later,” Eren hung up the phone and made a three-point turn in the middle of traffic to go back the way he came.

It ended up being the way he and Levi had gone on his first ride-along, except instead of turning left at the stop sign, they’d gone straight. Eventually Eren made it to his destination. He was amazed the pizza was still warm—those insulated bags were no joke. He returned to the store almost an hour later, and found out that the cause of the traffic jam had been a tree branch that had fallen during the storm. 

Eren still hadn’t gotten over his infatuation with his dark-haired coworker. However, as the days went on, he found it slowly turning into a proper crush, not that he would admit it.

They ended up spending a lot of time together at work. With Levi often working over forty hours a week, Eren’s humble twenty to twenty five meant Eren rarely worked a shift without Levi. As it turned out, with Levi teaching him how to do closing work properly, Hanji also often made him close as well. He would’ve complained about it if it didn’t mean that he got to work with Levi nearly every night he had a shift. It was often just them two and a manager at the end of the day. 

It happened quite often when Eren came into the back of the store during the end of the dinner rush that music was blaring loudly. He was never sure who metaphorically held the aux cord at any given time, unless it was Krista playing the Top 40, but almost everyone else seemed content to listen to hip-hop, rap, or trap. It wasn’t necessarily Eren’s favorite kind of music, but it was often the music of choice at parties he went to at school, so he was used to it. Levi, on the other hand, always looked like he was about to have an aneurism, especially when they played the latter. 

However, when it was just him, Levi, and Hanji or Armin, Eren discovered Levi had a rather eclectic music taste. He said he’d quickly gotten bored of listening to his own music, let alone the radio, his first year working there. He started listening to the charts of other countries with a decent music industry and, as such, he’d collected quite a varied list of songs in all kinds of languages from almost every genre. He only ever connected to the store’s communal bluetooth speaker when it was just him and Eren closing down the back. The younger man couldn’t deny he liked a lot of the songs Levi showed him, but he also didn’t hesitate to tease him when he thought a song was weird or just plain bad. 

Eren himself didn’t care much to share his music taste with his coworkers, but he couldn’t deny he loved to sing, even if he didn’t have much talent for it. So, on the occasions when they closed together and Levi hadn’t already called dibs on the speaker, Eren found himself playing classics from the past decades—songs he thought everyone knew. He wasn’t above goading Levi into joining him either, threatening to spray the older man with the hose hanging over the sink if he didn’t sing  _ Don’t Stop Believing _ with him. Levi had called him a brat and reluctantly agreed, but Eren was the one taken aback when he heard how nice Levi’s singing voice was. His smooth tenor had Eren blushing to the tips of his ears, which he hid easily as he turned back to the wall to wash more dishes. 

Levi would never say it out loud, especially not to Hanji, but he actually started looking forward to the times he closed with Eren.

x

It was the end of Eren’s third week at work—an unusually quiet Sunday evening. It was the end of May, and the days were only getting longer and hotter, though the evenings were pleasant and the nights relatively cool. Eren enjoyed having a job that allowed him to drive around town, listening to music and simply enjoying the long, colorful sunsets. 

Lunch had, apparently, been quite busy, but that hardly mattered by the time Eren showed up. There were a few leftover pans to scrape and oil, but he quickly took care of those before the dinner rush started. Or, what was supposed to be a dinner rush. It was honestly rather sad for a Sunday, with so many drivers scheduled and so few orders. Ymir and Annie left early hoping to let the others take more deliveries and therefore make more money, but it was mostly pointless by the time they both left. By the time it was two hours before closing, most of the out work had already been taken care of or could be easily done later. Armin and Bertholdt were still up front working on the last carry-out order, but everyone else was sitting in the back rather bored. Eren and Levi found themselves perched next to each other, sitting on flour bags and scrolling through their phones. Connie was playing Tetris in the office, trying to retake his high score, and Jean and Marco were watching the highlights of some streamer playing a first-person shooter on Jean’s phone. 

Marco was on register, so when the person who ordered the carry-out order walked in, he made his way up to the front. At the same time, Connie emerged from the office and Levi and Eren looked up. 

“Still couldn’t beat it, huh?” Jean taunted. 

“Shut up,” he grumbled, “Get my pizza out of the hot-box, would you,” it was less of a request and more of a command.

“Why should I do it?”

“Because we're gonna make our  _ own _ hot-box, idiot,” Connie laughed.

Jean mumbled something to himself but stood up and grabbed the only pizza box inside.

“You care to join us, Levi?” Jean asked as Connie made a beeline for the back door.

“Actually, you know what? Yeah, I’ve had a shit day,” the short man said as he stood up. It wasn’t too often that Levi let himself indulge at work since it tended to make him drive slower when he wasn’t paying attention, but at the moment he wouldn’t mind something to take his mind off the stress. He doubted they’d get any more deliveries anyway.

Jean turned to walk the direction Connie had gone, his back turned to his two other coworkers. Levi stood in front of Eren, who was still looking at his phone, but used his hand to motion for the younger boy to follow.

“C’mon,” he said.

“Are you sure? I mean—“ Eren started.

“It’s fine, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You can still come with us, though. Unless you’re really that against it,” Levi said to him.

“Oh, alright then,” Eren took Levi’s outstretched hand as the older man helped him up even though he didn’t really need it.

They walked further down the back parking lot to a gray car with tinted windows. Eren assumed it was Connie’s car, since he knew what all the driver’s cars looked like. Connie and Jean were already sitting up front, so Eren and Levi slid into the backseat. 

The pungent smell of weed hit Eren’s nose full force as soon as the car door was open despite the fact that they hadn’t even started smoking yet. 

“Jesus, Connie, would it kill you to hang an air freshener in here?” Levi said as he climbed over to the far side of the seat.

“Like that would do shit,” the boy with the buzz cut retorted as he sprinkled some green onto a thin piece of paper. 

When Connie finished rolling the joint, he reached into his glove compartment, pulled out a lighter, and lit it. Despite the fact he implied they were going to hotbox his car, all the windows were, in fact, cracked. Connie took a hit and passed it to Jean, blowing the smoke out slowly in front of him. When Jean took a hit, however, he started hacking almost as soon as the joint left his lips. 

“Too much for ya?” Levi mocked.

“Shut up, I’d like to see you do any better,” Jean said between coughs, passing the joint off to the shorter man.

“Fine,” he said nonchalantly, holding it with his thumb and index finger. Levi took a long drag, maintaining eye contact with Jean the entire time. 

It was quiet for a moment when Levi pulled the joint from his mouth, still staring down the taller man. He could feel the smoke swirling in his airways, much to his discomfort. He tried to hold in one cough, two, finally failing on the third, and accidentally blowing the smoke into Jean's face, who simply cleared it with a wave of his hand and started hollering. 

“Ha! Told you!” 

Levi squeezed his eyes and bent over, holding his forehead in the hand that wasn’t holding the joint, both elbows resting on his knees. Eren looked on worriedly.

“Shit...that really got me,” he said quietly after a moment, trying to calm his spinning head, “Where the hell did you get this?” 

“This is Hanji’s new shit, isn’t it?” the horseface asked Connie.

“Yup,” 

“Jesus…” the smaller man spoke again, sitting up completely zonked, “I’m assuming you don’t want any of this?” He asked as he held the joint towards Eren.

“I...think I’m alright, thanks,” he declined. Levi passed it back to Connie. 

“What, not gonna smoke with us, Eren?” Jean taunted.

“I’m not really much of a smoker,” the younger boy explained.

“How about you try sucking on this instead…”

Levi thought he was about to make a dick joke until his eyes caught sight of Jean pulling out a small white box from his pants pocket. He tossed something that looked like one of those silica gel packets you’re not supposed to eat to Eren who caught it easily in his hand.

“Jean, I swear to god if you keep being a shithead I’m gonna strangle you to death with the cheese wire,” The raven-haired man threatened, which caused Connie to burst into laughter up front. 

“What?” Jean feigned innocence, even though he couldn’t keep the shit-eating grin off his face. 

“Eren, don’t put that in your mouth,” he held the younger boy’s wrist with one hand and picked the small white packet out of it with his other, throwing it back at Jean. 

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” he continued speaking to the taller man, “you’ve practically given three people nicotine poisoning in the last two weeks because everyone here is a dumbass who can’t learn from observation. We even had to send Bertholdt home because he wouldn’t stop throwing up, and I thought he was smarter than that,” Levi shook his head. 

Jean just laughed and turned back around in his seat, taking the joint from Connie once again. He took a smaller hit this time in order to save his pride. Jean then held it back out to Levi, who was too busy looking out the window, wondering what the hell kind of cat had a rat tail before he realized it was actually a possum. 

“Levi,” Eren gently called in place of the taller man when he saw him holding out the joint, shaking the smaller man out of his reverie. 

Levi swiveled around with a small “Huh?” before he saw the lit joint in front of his face.

“Oh—I’m good for right now,” he declined, still reeling a little from how hard and fast his first drag had hit him. 

“So,” Jean started, passing the joint once more to Connie, “What happened to your day to make it shit?” he asked just to start a conversation.

Eren actually wanted to know that too. He turned to lean against the window and face the man next to him, pulling his knees up to his chest. Levi saw him and copied his actions just for shits and giggles, smiling because he thought he was being funny. The younger man smiled back, softly asking “What?” but Levi just shook his head and turned his attention back to Jean. 

“Two things. First, I was like, this close,” Levi held out two fingers for emphasis, “to hitting a fucking deer on fucking Macon of all places,” Eren raised his eyebrows at that, “Right?” Levi said in response to him, “It scared the living shit out of me. I ended up swerving into the other lane a little bit, but everyone was so far behind me they had more time to react. Then the deer ran onto the on-ramp to the highway, so, like, hope no one died or anything,” 

“Dude, if a deer jumped out in front of me on the highway I’d definitely be dead,” Connie spoke up. 

“Yeah, seriously,” Jean agreed.

“What was the second thing?” Eren asked him.

“God,” Levi sighed as he ran his fingers through his hair, “give me that,” he waved his hand toward the joint Jean was holding. If he was going to talk about it, he’d need something more to forget it again. He craned his head backward, aiming to blow the smoke out of the crack in the window above him, then passed it back.

“It’s stupid, honestly,” he started out, “You know the headquarters for the grocery store across the street?” 

“Yeah” Connie and Jean said in unison.

Levi looked at Eren, “It’s on the corner of Deerpark and Brook road. It’s got that big chain fence around it with a bunch of semis parked inside,”

“Oh yeah, I’ve passed by there,” 

“Okay, well, I had to take a $500 order up there during lunch. First of all, having that much pizza in your car is a nightmare. All the steam escapes out of the bags and it turns your car into an oven so I was sweaty and disgusting by the time I got there, even with the windows down, and I’m  _ still _ sweaty and disgusting because I haven’t been able to take a shower yet so don’t even get me  _ started _ ,” Levi paused to take a breath and calm himself.

“Anyway, it was a timed order for one o’clock. I got there at like, 12:50 or something and of course this idiot didn’t say if he wanted to meet at the north or south entrance and he didn’t fucking pick up either of the two times I called him and then he finally called me back while I was just driving around the complex aimlessly and told me he wanted to meet at the north entrance, which was not where I was at that moment and you know what the fuck he said to me when I got there?” Levi’s blood was boiling now.

“What?” Eren inquired, genuinely curious.

“He fucking said ‘you’re late,’” he pinched the bridge of his nose, “it was one oh-fucking-two,” the smaller man growled. I didn’t say shit because I knew if I did I was gonna go fucking off on him but, god, if your workers are on such a tight fucking lunch hour maybe pick up your goddamn phone when someone calls,” Levi huffed. He held his hand straight out towards the front of the car in a clear signal to hand him the joint again. It was almost gone. Levi tapped it against the top edge of the window and watched the ash fall outside. The smoke was a lot harsher in his lungs now, so he decided this would be his last hit. 

“Wow, that guy sounds like an asshole,” Eren sympathized, “you should’ve spit in one of the pizzas,” He smiled a little when he got Levi to chuckle at that. 

“I wish,” he said, “at least there was a $50 gratuity on it, so this day wasn’t a total waste,”

“That’s good,” the younger boy commented as he slid his feet over so the edge of his and Levi’s shoes were touching. Levi simply nodded. 

Connie started passing out the pieces of his pizza now that the joint was nearly gone. Levi took a bite and his eyes rolled up into his head.

“God, I’m starving. You think I’d be tired of this shit by now but it’s so good,” 

A short silence fell over the group before Jean asked, seemingly out of nowhere, “What do you guys think about the roundabouts they’re putting in everywhere?” 

“A godsend,” the raven-haired man said.

“I think they’re very European,” Eren added. 

“You know what’s funny? I actually like when people turn left at a three or four way intersection. It’s like, yes, finally, a reason to actually  _ stop _ ,” Levi laughed.

“Amen,” Jean said to that. Another pause settled over them.

“What were we just talking about? There was something else I wanted to say” the shorter man asked as he squeezed his eyes shut in concentration.

“We were talking about—“ Eren began. 

“Wait!” Connie interjected, “I wanna see if he can pull it out of his own brain. You can do it, Levi!” He encouraged. Eren gave him a funny look but didn’t say anything.

Levi furrowed his brows in concentration, “I was thinking about...shit, what was I thinking about?” He murmured to himself. Eren made a circle in the air with his finger.

“Oh! Roundabouts, right...” Connie tried to reach over and smack Eren on the leg for giving Levi a hint. He quickly pulled his legs back and Connie couldn’t do more than give him a light tap on the shin, “Hands to yourself, children,” Levi jokingly admonished while slapping Connie’s hand away. Eren moved his feet back so their toes were touching once again.

“Anyway, as I was saying, they oughta put one of those on the intersection of Deerpark and Pfeiller. I get why they put one by Peak Park, I guess, but I would’ve preferred it two miles up the road,” 

Everyone nodded along, even Connie, since he had to take Pfeiller to get home. The conversation lulled once again. Jean and Connie started talking amongst themselves, apparently having plans to go bar hopping downtown later in the week. Eren and Levi were quiet in the back.

Eventually, the younger boy scooted one of his feet in between Levi’s and used his other to tap the top of one of his coworker’s shoes. Levi tapped back, so Eren put his shoe on top of the foot he used, trying to trap it against the seat. Levi used his other foot to do the same to Eren. It continued on until the sound of their shoes knocking together alerted Connie. 

“Are you playing footsie in my car? That’s gay, Levi,” 

Eren froze for a moment, waiting to see how Levi would react. The younger boy himself normally wouldn’t have cared; he was used to hearing people say things like that in high school and occasionally at college too, and it honestly didn’t bother him. The only reason it put him on high alert now was because, well, he kind of  _ liked _ the other man. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t even know if Levi liked guys. 

“Yeah, like that’s surprising to you,” he glanced up at Eren to gauge his reaction. You could say this was his subtle way of coming out to the other boy. Levi knew Connie was just teasing him—everyone at work already knew. Levi thought he was pretty good at reading people, but Eren, for all he usually blushed, was holding up a good poker face that he couldn’t quite decipher. 

Eren absorbed that information, keeping his face carefully blank. For some reason, he was feeling brave. He stared at Levi and, keeping his face entirely neutral, knocked his shoe against Levi’s one more time, face splitting into a wide grin. 

Levi laughed and trapped the offending foot with his own before swinging his legs back over the seat and declaring, “C’mon, let’s go back inside, I’m fuckin’ thirsty,” 

Eren wasn’t sure if it was the fumes from the joint getting to him or the sound of Levi’s laughter, but Eren’s smile stayed on his face through the next hour and all the way home. 


	5. Hanji’s Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanji makes a pizza more fit for animals than people, so Eren and Levi decide to feed the wildlife out back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve had a wild week—all the coronavirus updates are seriously jeopardizing my study abroad in Japan, so I’ve been going back and forth between freaking out and being calm, depending on what the most current email in my inbox is. Anyway, partially because of that, this isn’t my favorite chapter, but I added in some Levi backstory finally. 
> 
> Also thank you to everyone who’s left a kudos/comment <3333 and as always thanks for reading~

It was always a nice surprise to Eren when one of the insiders made a mistake at work. A mistake usually meant free dinner, not that Eren couldn’t get an entire pizza for free if he just asked someone to make him one, but oftentimes at work as soon as he returned to the store, he had to go right back out again. He didn’t have time to ask for one usually, at least until the end of the night. But when a mistake was laid on the table, he could just take a plate, take a piece, and go. That is, if Sasha didn’t obliterate it first. 

Eren had just gotten back from his last delivery and had started folding extra pizza boxes when he saw Hanji walk in the back and lay a small pizza on the table. He couldn’t see it very well from where he was, but Levi had been working on wiping down lids right next to where she set it down. She turned to head back into the kitchen when Levi stopped her.

“What the hell is that?” The raven-haired man asked.

“It’s a failed experiment. You can have it if you want,” she shrugged casually.

“No one’s gonna eat that. What the hell even is it?” He asked again.

“Well, what does it  _ look  _ like?” 

Levi rolled his eyes, studying the abomination before him.

“It looks like a piece of cardboard with coagulated blood on it, but I’m going to assume it’s actually a burnt thin crust with,” he squinted and leaned closer to it, “blobs of barbecue sauce,” 

“Bingo,”

Levi looked exasperated.

“I just...Why? What were you even trying to make?” The shorter man questioned.

“Look, do you want it or not?”

“No! Nobody fucking wants that. I’m feeding it to the raccoons out back,”

Hanji had gotten in the habit of throwing the scrap pieces of baked pizza dough in the grass outside, and as a consequence attracted a fair amount of wildlife. It wasn’t unusual for Eren to see possums, rabbits, flocks of birds, raccoons, or deer when he pulled in. Which reminded him...

“There were a few deer outside when I came in,” He perked up. He’d managed not to scare them off, which sometimes happened when a car pulled in too fast or too close to them. They froze for a moment, watching Eren get out of his car. He said hello to them as he often did when the wildlife outside stared at him, but they went back to their grazing as he turned his back to them to head into the store.

“Perfect,” Levi said. He picked up the piece of ribbed cardboard it was on and started walking towards the back door, but he paused, “Do you wanna feed them with me?” He asked the younger boy. 

Eren didn’t even have to think about it.

“Yes,” he agreed immediately, dropping the box he was holding and walking quickly to follow Levi into the back parking lot. 

There were three deer grazing on the thin strip of grass that existed between the back lot and the sparse woods behind the building; all their heads shot up at the sound of the heavy metal door opening. Levi stopped dead in his tracks, not wanting to scare them off, but it was so sudden Eren slammed into his back, causing him to jerk forward a step. 

“Sorry,” the younger man said.

“It’s okay. I just don’t wanna startle them,” Levi explained.

The shorter man slowly started taking steps closer and closer. The deer watched him with large, wary eyes. He didn’t head straight for them, instead making his way to his car, which was parked close to where the deer were but slightly off to the side. He thought it would seem less threatening. Eren followed slowly behind him, not looking at the deer, also in an attempt to seem less threatening. 

Eventually, Levi made it to the front of his car and carefully hopped up onto the hood. He scooted over and patted the part of the hood next to him, motioning for Eren to sit up there with him. Hanji’s sad excuse for a pizza rested between their legs. Levi examined it once more. He figured it probably wasn’t good for wild animals to eat barbecue sauce, but luckily the few blobs only covered one half of the crust. He really wondered what went on in Hanji’s head.

The shorter man broke off a tiny piece of the burnt crust and tossed it underhand toward the deer off to their left. The deer closest to where it landed skittered back a few steps. However, the one behind it must’ve been used to being fed, or at least was around whenever Hanji dumped the bread outside because it came right up to investigate. Eren watched on in interest and broke off another piece. He tossed it slightly to the right of where Levi’s piece had landed and the deer that had backed away seemed cautiously interested. Unfortunately, the deer that had just finished eating Levi’s piece was quick to snatch up Eren’s as well. 

“Hey, you can’t hog it all for yourself,” Eren called as he cracked off another piece and threw it closer to the more timid deer. Levi gave a soft, breathy laugh beside him and did the same. There was a third deer further off in the distance, watching them, but it soon wandered back into the trees without giving them a second thought.

The raven-haired man cast another small piece of crust into the grass, though not as far this time. He was trying to lure them closer. Eren noticed what Levi’s intentions were, but only the friendlier deer took the bait. Eren continued tossing a few pieces to the shy one, wanting to make sure it got its fair share as well. 

Both boys broke off pieces of the burnt crust at the same time, but Eren ended up dropping his right in front of the car, which didn’t go unnoticed by either deer. The friendlier one seemed to have no problem getting that close to them if it meant more food. Eren backed up further onto the hood, both to give the deer some space and because Eren had never been this close to a wild animal before. 

Levi looked at him, raising his eyebrows and smirking, giving him a look that said something like  _ What? Don’t tell me you’re scared of it. _

But before Eren had time to make any kind of retort, the deer perked it’s head up and tried to eat the piece of crust straight out of Levi’s hand. Levi startled at first and froze immediately, before making a disgusted face at the feeling of the deer's tongue on his hand. Eren laughed loudly at his absurdly exaggerated expression, scaring both deer, who shot off quickly back into the woods. 

“Nice going, Eren,” Levi scolded, though he wasn’t actually mad.

“I’m sorry,” the younger boy kept laughing, “It was just...your  _ face _ ,” 

“What about my face?” He asked with an accusatory tone. Eren’s laughter died down a bit.

“Oh, nothing. How did it feel?” 

“What, you mean it’s tongue? Gross,” Levi made another face.

“Was it soft?” Eren thought back to petting zoos he’d been to as a kid. He thought about the goats and horses that had eaten out of the palm of his hand before.

“It was...slimy. I guess so,” the smaller man admitted. 

Eren chuckled again. He was a little jealous, but not enough to regret accidentally scaring them off. The deer came around often—he’d probably get another chance to feed them if he really wanted to. He did wish he’d been recording the whole thing on his phone, though. 

He stretched out against Levi’s windshield and put his hands behind his head. The sun had just set behind them and the first stars were just starting to come out. He watched Venus shining directly above them as Levi got up to throw the half of the pizza with the barbecue sauce on it into the dumpster. When he returned he followed Eren’s lead and leaned back against his car, resting his hands on top of his stomach. A silence grew between them, but it was comfortable. 

Eren turned his head, looking at Levi’s profile as he looked up into the twilight sky. His hair swayed gently in the breeze—-Eren suddenly wanted to reach out and touch it, but refrained. Levi noticed him watching but didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he almost basked in the subtle attention. He gave himself a moment to rest, closed his eyes, and huffed a sigh—he’d been at work for nearly ten hours now anyway. 

Eren studied his features carefully, but noticed something out of the corner of his eye. A tassel was hanging off of Levi’s rearview mirror in his car. The younger boy knew it had been there when he’d gone on his ride-alongs with the other man, but he’d never really paid attention to it. It was clearly from his high school graduation. There was a little gold charm that had Levi’s graduation year on it, but the thing that bothered him was that he didn’t recognize the school's colors. The tassel was navy and white, but none of the high schools in this city had those as their school colors. 

“Hey, Levi,”

“Hmm?” His eyes remained closed.

“What high school did you go to?” 

The shorter man rolled onto his side, arm supporting his head, facing Eren and looking at the tassel that had grabbed his attention. 

“I went to high school across the river—you probably wouldn’t know it,” Levi explained. 

“You don’t still live there, do you?” Eren supposed it wouldn’t have been unheard of if he did, but it would’ve been one hell of a commute, especially for a job like this. 

“No, I live in Ashe Hill now,” Ashe Hill was one of the less well-off parts of their delivery zone. Eren didn’t particularly like going there because the tips weren’t usually all that great—if he didn’t get stiffed, that is—and the roads were in desperate need of maintenance. Other than that, it wasn’t a bad part of town per sé. Nothing bad ever really happened in their quiet little suburbia—it was just a crowded, run-down section of town with cheap rent and houses that had paint peeling off the sides.

“I see. How come you moved?” Eren didn’t really know why he was asking. He supposed he just wanted to know more about the other man.

“I…” Levi thought carefully about his words, “moved out after I graduated,”

“Oh, really?” Eren was honestly a bit surprised. Technically he’d moved out after he’d graduated as well, but that was just because he lived on campus when he was at school. He’d never actually had his own apartment. And Levi hadn’t gone to college. 

“How’d you manage to move out so quick?” Eren continued. He couldn’t even imagine being that independent right out of high school. He had a decent amount of money saved up, but paying bills, especially for things as expensive as rent, would’ve eaten through it in no time. 

“Well, it wasn’t easy,” Levi began, “Actually, if you really wanna know, I lived in my car for awhile at first,” Eren’s eyebrows raised at that, clearly asking for further explanation. Levi rubbed both hands over his face, “You really gonna drag this whole story out of me right now, huh?” He asked.

The younger boy quickly backtracked, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” 

“No, it’s fine, it’s just kind of a long story,”

Eren didn’t say anything, he just kept looking at the older man.

“I moved out because I aged out of the foster system,” he said, which took Eren by surprise—he’d had no idea, “My mom died when I was a kid, and I never had a dad,” he explained. 

“I got passed around a lot when I was a kid. I was kind of a trouble-maker—I was always getting into fights at school. I got suspended a lot. I even got expelled once. After that I got put with a guy named Kenny. He wasn’t the best…” Levi paused for a moment, looking for the right word, “guardian, I guess, if you could even call him that. But by comparison he was probably the most tolerable. I was twelve by then, and he kind of just left me alone, which was fine. I could fend for myself for the most part by then,” he gave another sigh, “But he started acting like a real piece of shit towards the end of high school,” Levi’s brows furrowed.

“He always drank a lot. He never really did anything though, except pass out before I got home from school. He’d disappear for days at a time, occasionally for a week or two, but only when I was older. I had a job by then so I could buy groceries or clothes or whatever else I needed. Eventually, though, he started stealing whatever cash I brought into the house. I tried to hide it, but somehow he always found out where it was. I’m pretty sure he just used it to buy more booze and gamble, but I got tired of it. I tried to confront him about it, multiple times, but he’d either guilt me into leaving him alone about it or he’d disappear again, which was a real bitch because he’d just stolen most, if not all, of my paycheck and if there wasn’t any food in the house then I was fucked. Anyway, probably the only good thing he ever did was let me stay with him until I finished school, otherwise I probably would’ve had to drop out. That was what he liked to guilt me about, but I also think he didn’t want me to leave so he could keep mooching off of me. But I’d had enough of it, so I decided I’d move out as soon as I graduated, and I did…and now I’m here,” he finished. He was glad to be out from under Kenny’s roof, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about having worked here for four years with no end in sight. He never really imagined his life past high school—it scared him, at the time, knowing so little about his own future, especially considering he had so few options. Levi always figured the best case scenario would be him getting adopted into a decent family, maybe even one with enough money to send him to college, but he never had much hope of that happening. He had been such a disagreeable child, and he’d hated every family he’d ever been placed with. His ‘best case scenario’ was really more like a pipe-dream—he’d given up on it long ago.

Eren didn’t know what to say, so he asked, “Have you seen him since?” 

“No. I mean, I do kind of wonder how he’s holding up sometimes, but I bet nothing’s changed. Probably still taking advantage of older foster kids,” Levi sighed.

Eren hummed, looking down at his feet.

“I’ve thought about taking classes at the community college in Ashe Hill, but honestly I don’t even know what I would want to study if I did,” Levi continued, “I always did want to go to college,” he said quietly, mostly to himself.

“Then you should!” Eren exclaimed, “You could totally do it,” 

“Hmm, you think so?” Levi questioned.

“Yeah! I mean, honestly, I still don’t know what the hell I wanna do, and I’m already halfway through…” Eren paused to have a quick internal crisis about his future, “but if I can do it, so can you,”

Levi simply hummed, “I’ll think about it,”

“Okay,” Eren didn’t want to push, “Let me know, though, maybe I can help you apply,”

By now they were both sitting back up, and Levi was hugging his knees. A small smile graced his face, “Alright, I’ll let you know,” Eren gave him a bright smile in return.

At that moment, Sasha and Connie burst out of the back door in fits of laughter—probably over something inane, Levi figured—and chose that moment to slide down off the hood of his car. Eren followed suit as they walked back to finish up whatever was left to do in the store, Levi holding the door open for Eren along the way. Eren hoped the other man knew he was serious about his offer, and he hoped he would take him up on it. If Levi wanted to go to college, then by all means Eren believed he should, and he would stand by him the whole way, if that’s what the older man wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, the kudos and comments are highly appreciated <3


	6. Runner’s High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren goes for a long run without the proper electrolytes. A savior arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow okay I really went ham on this chapter yesterday. This chapter is mostly me nerding out about running, but I’ve been in my self-imposed no-running prison for two weeks and I’ll be there until the half marathon, unfortunately. We cross-train until then. Also don’t come for my translation of shinzo wo sasageyo (the best running song in the world imho). The only line I didn’t know super well was the last one, but I didn’t like the way it was translated when I looked it up, so. Thanks for reading!

When Eren had first started working at the pizzeria, he’d requested Hanji give him at least two days off in a row each week. He still had marathon training to do, which meant he needed one day a week to do long runs, and preferably another day after to recover. Doing such high-impact exercise really took a toll sometimes, especially when he was tackling farther and farther distances—ones his body wasn’t used to yet. He was too tired to do anything else the rest of the day after a long run, but he relished that kind of dog-tiredness. He’d go for a long, slow run, come home and wash all the dirt and sweat off his body with a nice, warm shower, then fall onto the couch and eat his heart out in carbs and protein while he watched TV until his exhausted body eventually fell asleep to start the reparations to his bones, joints, and muscles. He always felt better when he woke up after those kinds of naps, although that didn’t mean he had the energy to do things like go to work afterwards.

It was Tuesday, and the first day of his two day long break, which meant it was time to get his mileage in. Luckily, Hanji had given him the coolest day in the forecast this week to do his long run. She tended to do that, unless the coolest day fell on a Friday or Saturday, which he was essentially required to work. It was early July, and the midday temperatures were really starting to creep up. Fortunately, it had stormed that morning, so the temperatures had cooled considerably outside. Eren didn’t usually get to run during midday in the summer, as he tried to avoid the harsh heat and sun, so he was happy to change up his routine from his typical morning or evening runs. 

He’d made sure to eat a large, carb-filled breakfast before his run. Usually he liked to make a bowl of instant oatmeal and add bananas and brown sugar into the mix. All good sources of energy, and he figured the potassium from the banana would keep his electrolytes balanced. He ate his breakfast while the storm passed by outside and made sure to chug a glass of water. The winds were still whipping and the rain was still pattering harshly against the window when he finished, so he got on his laptop and opened up YouTube. The summer olympics were only a few weeks away. He remembered when the Olympic marathon trials had gone on in February; it was the only time he’d gone to run at his university’s gym. He’d hopped on the treadmill in front of the TV with ESPN turned on, wanting to watch the trials and, in a sense, run with them. 

He actually didn’t know most of the people running. Eren’s long-term goal was actually to start running ultramarathons, and since those kinds of races were usually held off-road, it wasn’t like they were ever televised. However, there was a very niche community making films about them online, and as such he’d learned a lot about who the elite ultramarathoners were. Only one of them was racing in the Olympic marathon trials though, and he unfortunately hadn’t been able to even catch a glimpse of her, since the cameras were focused on the pack leaders. Regardless, he was amazed at all these people who could run five or six minute miles and sustain it for over two hours. Actually, he was especially astounded by the woman who’d come in second—that had been her first marathon  _ ever _ , and she had qualified for the trials by running what must have been a ridiculous half marathon time. 

More than anything else though, he loved watching films and documentaries about the Western States 100 mile endurance run, which was held in California every year. He was waiting for videos to come out about this year's race, since it had just been held over the weekend. That was his lofty dream goal. There were only three ways to even get into the race: place in the top ten for your gender in the race the year before, the lottery system, or getting a golden ticket by finishing in the top two for your gender in specific qualifying races, like the Lake Sonoma 50. Eren’s best shot was probably the lottery, since he was more of a middle-packer, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t inspired by watching all these people pushing their physical limits, and in such beautiful places as well. He’d never wanted to go out West more than when he watched trail-racing videos. 

Soon enough, the rain cleared up, although the skies remained cloudy, which Eren was thankful for. He enthusiastically climbed up the stairs to his room to and started getting ready. He looked through his sock drawer, looking specifically for the pairs of sports socks he had. He’d first started running in cotton socks, which he learned almost immediately was a horrible mistake. Due to playing sports in high school, he had already built up a pretty good base when it came to cardio fitness, so he had no problem running four or so miles from the get-go. Unfortunately, due to all the endorphins that tended to get released during a run, or any kind of exercise, it was fairly easy to ignore the blisters he could tell were starting to form on his feet. They became huge, and when the endorphins wore off, much more painful. So painful, in fact, he was having trouble walking around campus the next day, and the only relief he could get was by popping and smothering them in analgesic neosporin. Afterwards, he bought as many anti-blister socks as he could afford.

He pulled out a pair of black basketball shorts with pockets, so he had somewhere to put his phone and a protein bar he planned on eating during his run. After all, he was inching slowly closer to emptying all his extra fuel reserves every time he added more mileage onto a long run. It was important to eat before you reached that point. Eren had never experienced ‘hitting the wall’ and he didn’t want to. He was supposed to run 16 miles today—one final push before he pulled back next week, in order to run even further the week after that.

Eren pulled on a plain white T-shirt and headed into the bathroom. He put on some sunscreen, just in case the skies cleared up while he was out. It would probably take him a little over two and half hours to run that far and he really didn’t feel like getting a sunburn. Then, he opened up the medicine cabinet above the sink and grabbed two of the larger sized bandaids from the container they were kept in, and taped them over his nipples. Probably the only thing worse than getting blisters from cotton socks was the feeling of chaffed nipples against a shirt. Not to mention two little dark red spots on a shirt really made for a poor fashion statement. Eren swore he would never, ever make that mistake again. 

He went back downstairs and got his handheld water bottle. He hated running loops—his mind always got caught up in the counting and the math—so he got a water bottle that had a strap on it so it could just kind of slip onto his hand and he could bring it with him wherever he ran. It was good for exploring. He usually just ran around the neighborhoods near his house, but sometimes he went down to the bike trail and did a long out-and-back. If he couldn’t bring his water bottle with him, then he was restrained to only running about three miles tops in either direction. Eren usually drank water after a run, unless he was running for longer than an hour, in which case he usually drank some sort of sports drink, both for the extra calories and for the electrolytes. He made his way to the fridge to pour some Gatorade into his water bottle, only to find that there wasn’t any. Originally, he’d planned to do an eight mile out-and-back on the trail, but he really didn’t feel like driving to the store to buy more, so he revised his plan. 

He’d fill his bottle with water and run around the neighborhoods by the park up the street. Then, if he ran out of water he could fill it up at the water fountains in the park. There was a Dairy Queen about a mile or so away from there, so he’d probably head up there sometime in the middle of his run and scarf down some fries for the salt. He replaced the protein bar he’d put in his pocket for a five dollar bill. 

Of course, he couldn’t forget what were probably the two most important things he needed: his ear buds and his running watch. Eren couldn’t deny that one of his biggest reasons for loving to run was the fact that he got runner’s high very easily. When it came to himself, he basically had it down to a science—long runs typically gave him the best highs and for the longest amount of time. His sweet spot was about ten minute miles, and then he’d really start to feel it about 45 minutes in.

He walked about a quarter of a mile up the street, past the busy intersections of Macon until he reached the quieter residential streets. The less crosswalks he had to wait at the better. He walked up the sidewalk until he came to the first neighborhood. He popped in his earbuds and shuffled his running playlist. Without further ado, he started his running watch and set off.

He started fairly slowly. He made sure his breathing stayed easy and quickly got into a rhythm. It was always strange, how effortless running felt when he started out. After a few minutes he checked his watch—he was running a 9:20 pace, so he slowed down ever so slightly. He couldn’t afford to go out too fast when he still had fifteen and a half miles left. He watched his pace drop to 10:10 and decided to go as steady as he could there. He tried to hover within twenty seconds in either direction of ten minutes.

Once he got settled, he turned his focus more towards the music and just his thoughts in general. Running really gave him a lot of time to think. It did get boring sometimes, but he tried to think of positive things—things to look forward to, good news he’d gotten, etc. If he was stressed he liked to channel his anxiety or anger into energy, although those were better for shorter, faster runs. He could feel the sweat starting to gather on his forehead.

He kept running, occasionally passing people walking their dogs or just going for a stroll. He checked his watch— 2.13 miles, 21:52. Right on track. He was still feeling fresh out the door, not having put in too much effort. He was feeling pretty good actually. He was still in the beginning of his run, so it was too early to definitively call it a good or a bad run, but it was going well. He kept running. He was still in the residential neighborhoods, although he’d gotten a bit farther away from the park. He checked his watch— 3.37 miles, 34:02. A drop of sweat rolled down his cheek. His heart rate was climbing very steadily, but it was still relatively low—that was good, the longer he could keep it down the easier his effort would feel. He could feel now that the three miles had used up some of his energy but it was hardly noticeable. He ran around a cul-de-sac and decided to head closer to the park. 

When he hit four miles, he took a quick break to suck down a third of his water bottle. He kept running. It felt easy, and he was still feeling good. Actually, he was feeling even better than he had a mile ago. He kept going. The further he went, the better he felt. He could tell the high was coming on and it made him grin. He was proud to have a body that could carry him such a far distance. He’d built it himself, after all. He was proud of himself, for working so diligently, and for being able to restrain his pace to the point he could feel so damn good while doing it. He started smiling and waving at the people he passed on the street and when they smiled back at him, his mood increased ever so slightly more. He started mouthing the words to the songs he was listening to.

He saw another runner jogging down the street toward him. It might’ve been a little ridiculous, but he always felt a certain kind of kinship with other runners when he saw them. When they got closer to each other, the other man held his hand out across the street as a sign he wanted to give Eren a high-five. Eren looked behind him for any oncoming cars as he crossed over to the other runner, and as they passed by each other their hands made a loud slap and the man called out “You’ve got this!” and Eren couldn’t have stopped smiling if he tried. He looked over his shoulder and shouted a similar encouraging sentiment, then checked his watch again—5.65 miles, 55:34. 

It was hard to explain just how much that kind of sincere encouragement affected him. It brought his mood to a whole new level, and there was no doubt in his mind now that he was deep into the high. This one seemed particularly strong, but Eren wasn’t complaining. Just to make the icing on the cake even sweeter, his favorite song on his playlist came on. It was a rather dark song, but he thought the chorus was very fitting for a running playlist. It was the song he always imagined crossing the finish line of the marathon to. 

_ Dedicate, dedicate, dedicate your heart _

_ All of our sacrifices were for this moment _

_ Dedicate, dedicate, dedicate your heart _

_ By my own hand, I’ll cut open a path to the future that must move forward... _

He was feeling so good, he decided he didn’t care about his pace for the next few minutes, and ran at a pace where his footsteps matched the beat of the song. God, he loved running. He kept mouthing the words.

_...All was not in vain _

_ Dedicate, dedicate, dedicate your heart _

_ All of our hard work was for this moment _

_ Dedicate, dedicate, dedicate your heart _

_ By my own hand, I’ll grasp the victory that must be sung… _

He suddenly thought of Levi. He imagined the shorter man coming to cheer him on during the marathon, and smiled to himself. Would it be weird for Eren to invite him? He suddenly felt like if Levi was there, then he would be able to do anything. Actually, he felt like he could do anything right  _ now _ . In his mind, he felt like he could run the whole marathon right here and now, but he knew he’d feel differently once he started getting to the half marathon mark. Eren had never run further than 14 miles, so he knew the last two miles were probably going to be a real bitch, but he’d get to that later. Right now, he wanted to bask in the feeling of being invincible. Imagining Levi cheering for him on the sidelines of the race in his mind certainly didn’t hurt either.

... _ That miracle has become the path to freedom _

_ Dedicate, dedicate, dedicate your heart _

_ All of our suffering was for this moment _

_ Dedicate, dedicate, dedicate your heart _

_ Turn your fleeting life into a burning arrow _

_ Dedicate, dedicate, dedicate your heart _

_ Create yourself a miracle you ought to be proud of… _

The song changed over. Eren squirted some more water into his mouth and checked his watch. He’d just crossed six miles and the one hour mark. He was doing well pacing. He’d probably need to start heading to Dairy Queen in a few miles. For now, he kept bobbing his head to the beat of the music, occasionally stepping extra hard when his footsteps matched up as well. 

He continued imagining Levi coming to watch him run his first marathon. He imagined the older man wishing him luck before the gun went off. He imagined him standing next to his parents and Armin, all of them cheering him on. He imagined hugging him after he crossed the finish line, beating his goal time of four and a half hours. It suddenly gave him a fluttery feeling in his stomach, but he didn’t stop imagining it. It made him smile. He ran faster. 

Suddenly, as if he was in a dream, he heard the distinctive double-beep of a car horn behind him. There was no one else on the road, not another person or car, and Eren couldn’t help himself, he gave a loud, sharp laugh. It was the signature two honks Levi gave him when they were both out on a delivery and passed each other on the street. Eren turned around, his grin stretching from ear to ear when, sure enough, he turned around to see Levi’s black sedan with the delivery sign on top pull up behind him. He gladly paused his both his running watch and music, taking his earbuds out as Levi braked next to him and rolled the window down. 

“I thought that was you,” was all the older man said by way of explanation. 

“I was just thinking of you, actually,” Eren told him. He wondered if that was a weird thing to say, and then concluded he didn’t care.

“Well you know what they say, speak of the devil and he shall appear,” Levi smirked at the younger boy.

“What are you doing here?” Eren asked him.

“What do you think? I’ve got a delivery right down there,” he pointed to the small side street off to the left, “We also decided to do a food trade with Dunkin Donuts, so I just picked that up too. You want anything?” 

Eren perked up even more, if it was possible. He laughed again. Levi didn’t know what was so funny, but he smiled at the sound of the other boy’s laughter.

“Got anything salty?” He inquired.

Levi reached onto the floor of the passenger seat to search through the bags of food and pulled out a small paper pouch, “I’ve got some hash browns,” he held them out towards the window.

Eren kept smiling, “Perfect! Thanks, Levi,”

“Don’t mention it. Alright, well, I’ll let you get back to training. How many more miles do you have left?”

“About ten,”

Levi let out a whistle, “Well, good luck then, not that you’ll need it,”

“Thanks!” Eren beamed. He wasn’t even halfway done, but this was shaping up to be the best run of his life. He still couldn’t stop smiling.

“I’ll see you Thursday?” The dark-haired man inquired.

“Yep! Four o’clock,” Eren confirmed.

Levi nodded, “Alright, four o’clock. See you then,”

“See you later!” Eren called as Levi rolled up the window. He put his earbuds back in, and shoved the hash browns into his mouth as fast as he could. When he finished, he started his watch again and started making his way out of the neighborhood and towards the park. A few minutes later Levi drove up behind him again and honked his horn as loudly and obnoxiously as he could as he passed the younger boy. Eren laughed and pumped his fist in the air. He was having a great day.

The rest of his run was comparatively uneventful. He finished up his water bottle and refilled it when he reached the park and then continued up to Dairy Queen, even though he didn’t get anything there. His runner’s high was pretty strong up until that point, but it started to level off around mile 11, although Eren was still in a great mood. He was starting to feel a bit tired now, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t push through. He was getting close to the end. Miles 12 and 13 went pretty similarly. He tried to keep his pace and breathing in check by talking out loud to himself to see if he could hold a conversation. It could’ve been easier—he had to pause to take a breath a little more frequently than what he would’ve preferred, but he figured he was doing pretty good. He only had three miles left. By mile 14, the euphoria of the high had mostly worn off and Eren began pushing into unknown territory. When he started mile 15, his legs started to feel heavier, but he’d experienced this kind of feeling and he knew he could push through it, it was just going to be a pain in the ass. At this point in his training, two miles was almost nothing to him. He noticed his knee was starting to ache a little bit— that raised some alarm bells in his mind. He’d have to make sure to ice it afterwards. He  _ was _ a bit ahead in his training schedule, so if he had to pull his mileage down a little bit over the next few weeks in order to not get injured, he had the time for it. Luckily his long run next week was only 12 miles. 

Eren felt like he was running incredibly slowly for the last three quarters of a mile or so, even though his watch said he was maintaining his ten minute pace. 

“This literally feels like...the longest mile of my life…” he huffed out loud to himself between breaths. And he was only halfway done with it. It felt like his feet were pounding on the pavement. It was always strange to him, how he felt tired when he reached the end of his run, but he wasn’t necessarily out of breath or even slowing down. He kept putting one foot in front of the other—he’d be done soon. He kept a close eye on his watch, waiting for it to tick over to 16.00 miles. He started running a bit faster the last tenth of a mile, eager to get it over with already and start walking home. When he finally crossed that invisible finish line halfway through the park, he stopped his watch and wiped the sweat from his forehead, chugging what was left of his water bottle. He immediately headed in the direction of his house. 

He’d finished in almost exactly the time he’d predicted, so he was happy. The runner’s high had worn off a few miles ago, but his head was still a bit fuzzy with endorphins and exhaustion. He smiled to himself as he mentally recounted everything that had happened in the past couple of hours while he walked the final mile home. Now that he was no longer actively sweating, it was starting to dry on his face. It always made him feel like a french fry when he went to dislodge the solidified salt on his face and his fingers came away with a white crystallized powder. Yes, he had licked it before. It was saltier than regular table salt, disgustingly so.

When he got home, the sun was just starting to peek out from behind the clouds. Eren took a quick shower and changed into his pajamas, even though it was only 3pm. He grabbed a bag of frozen mixed vegetables out of the freezer and made himself quite possibly the best sandwich he’d ever tasted, then promptly passed out on the couch, the bag of vegetables resting on his knee. A mop of black hair followed him into his dreams, but he was more than happy to accommodate him there, even if he didn’t remember it when he woke up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an avid runner, weed smoker, and internet researcher I can confirm a runner’s high is chemically similar to a weed high. Not as strong but also feels way more badass. Your kudos and comments give me writing fuel like spaghetti gives me running fuel <3


	7. Creep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren can’t seem to catch a break...it’s just one weirdo after another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We hired two more teenage boys at work :))))) but one of them wanted my shift today so you can thank him for bringing you this chapter early.  
> Also I accidentally lied about the wyllis field light in chapter 3 oops (almost nothing in this fic is fake, not even the streetlights). The light after is always red before 8pm and always green after. And thank god for that because who knows what would’ve happened to me oof...  
> Anyway, thanks for reading~

Eren was having a pretty good day at work. It wasn’t necessarily a busy day, but most of the deliveries he’d taken had been at least $50 or more, and he was making a lot of double digit tips for it. It was mostly just the luck of the draw, and it seemed Eren was the one blessed by Lady Luck today. He was also happy to see Levi, who he hadn’t seen since last week simply because their shifts hadn’t aligned like they normally did.

Levi had been wiping lids while Eren was busy making a bucket of ranch when the phone rang. Levi took off his gloves in anticipation of answering it as Eren stabbed the tub of heavy mayonnaise with a large knife so it would slide out easier. He added the cream and ranch seasoning as he listened to Levi’s voice softly carrying over, confirming a relatively simple order. He was still standing by the computers while Eren mixed the contents of the bucket with a comically-sized whisk. 

He was surprised when Levi suddenly called out, “Eren, you’ve got Mancini,”

The younger boy looked around at his other coworkers, wondering if they knew what that meant or if he could gain some sort of clue from their facial expressions. However, before Eren could decipher if this was a good or a bad thing, Levi broke into an explanation.

“This guy’s real weird. He lives on Brook road—it’s kind of a hidden driveway but just follow your GPS and you’ll find it,”

“Okay,”

“But I just want to warn you. He’s going to invite you inside—“

That immediately raised some red flags in Eren’s mind. He knew he wasn’t supposed to go into other peoples homes when he went on deliveries; it was a safety measure. He usually politely declined if people invited him into the air conditioning, except for once when he delivered a pizza to a very old man. There was something about rickety elderly folk that made it hard to refuse them, and he clearly didn’t pose any kind of physical danger to Eren, so he figured it wouldn’t hurt. Regardless, he already didn’t like the sound of this.

“He always pays with cash and he’s got this drawer in his kitchen that’s just of money, it’s really weird,” 

Eren tried to imagine a kitchen drawer full of cash. That was...kind of bizarre. It didn’t seem very safe. At least, Eren kept all his cash from work in a bag hidden under his mattress, but he usually deposited it in the bank whenever it reached quadruple digits, which was about every three weeks or so. He couldn’t imagine keeping so much money in such an easily accessible place.

Levi was standing next to the younger man now as he continued, “He’ll also touch your back like this...” and the dark-haired man placed his hand firmly on the small of Eren’s back, which caused his face to heat up more than he cared to admit. He tried not to let the bit of disappointment show when Levi pulled his hand away. It was almost funny to him how he found himself wanting Levi to keep his hand there, but the thought of a random, probably much older man doing the same thing deeply unsettled him. 

“I let him do it because he gives great tips,” Levi explained, and then lowered his voice a little, “but if you’re not comfortable with that, we can switch deliveries. I don’t mind,”

The brunet didn’t like the thought of someone touching him in such a strangely intimate place, but he’d do it too, if he got a good tip out of it. He also had to admit he was pretty curious about this guy now, and he wanted to see his drawer full of cash. Otherwise, Eren was a little touched that Levi was trying to look out for him like this. It probably would’ve freaked him out more if he went in blind, so he appreciated the warning.

“That’s okay, Levi. I can handle it,” Eren told him and flashed him a smile as if to prove it.

“Okay then, I’m gonna take my delivery. Don’t get too freaked out,” he said as he patted Eren’s shoulder. The younger boy simply nodded. 

Almost as soon as Levi left, Eren couldn’t help it—he let it get to his head a little. It was a weird combination of anxiety and curiosity that got his adrenaline pumping. He really didn’t know what to expect, even though the older man had told him not to worry too much about it. Luckily, he only had about 15 minutes to dwell on it before his order was up.

Eren got in his car and typed the address into his GPS. At least he knew he could trust it would take him to the right place. It usually, of course, did, but it had happened on more than one occasion that it led him astray, which was always rather annoying. 

He drove all the way down Pfeiller, through the roundabout and took a right on Wildfield, which eventually turned into Brook. It dawned on Eren just how many roads in his suburb changed names depending how far down you went. Technically, he wasn’t even on Pfeiller anymore—he was on Baker-Millard, and if he kept driving down Wildfield/Brook it would eventually turn back into Deerpark. He knew how to get basically anywhere in the delivery zone, but this fact just wasn’t computing in his mind.

Eventually, his GPS said he was approaching his destination, although he didn’t see anything that signaled a house was nearby. The little red dot that indicated his destination was a bit off the road, and suddenly Eren saw a mailbox and a concrete path appear between some dense trees. He turned into it and was immediately greeted with one of the steepest driveways he’d ever seen. He parked his car a good distance behind the others parked on the flat section, since he was definitely going to have to hit the gas when he backed out or risk rear-ending them. Gravity pulled his car door as far open as it would go when he unlocked it.

He got the two pizza boxes out of the passenger seat and walked down to the door. He made sure to bring his car keys with him, just in case. He rang the doorbell. He noted the rock with ‘Mancini’ carved on it by the door—definitely the right address. He could hear someone coming down the stairs, which were right in front of the frosted glass door, and heard them singing as they descended. Alright.

A small, stocky man even shorter than Levi opened the door with a wide smile and an enthusiastic “Hi! How are you?” and he sounded genuinely interested. 

“I’m good, how are you?” Eren asked to be polite.

“I’m great! Come on in,” He gestured as he opened the door wider, just as Levi had told him he would.

Not even putting up the pretense of refusing, Eren stepped inside and followed the man into his kitchen, just off to the right. It was only slightly different from how Eren imagined it. Only slightly less dimly lit.

“What’s the damage?” He asked.

Eren usually looked at the receipt before leaving his car, but he’d completely forgotten under the circumstances, so he fumbled trying to look at the total, “Uh, $23.72,” he read off.

The man opened a drawer that Eren assumed was  _ the _ drawer, although it only had a few bills inside and instead was filled with coins. It was a lot of coins, and some of them looked foreign, but it was kind of underwhelming for all Eren had been thinking about it. He pulled one of the few bills out.

“Do you have change for a hundred?” He asked.

Uh oh. Eren only had a bank of $20. Under other circumstances, he would have had change for a hundred, but every order he’d taken that night had been paid for with a credit card, so he didn’t have any extra cash on him or in his car. 

“I’m sorry, I’ve only got twenty,” suddenly at a loss for what to do.

The other man hummed and then called to someone upstairs. They said something about a purse, which was on the kitchen table. He rifled through it and pulled out a ten and a twenty and handed it to Eren. As he always did, he was about to ask if he needed change, but he watched as the man went back to the drawer and pulled out another five and handed it to Eren with a “and this is for you,” 

Eren thanked the man and apologized again for not having change for a hundred as he set the boxes on the man’s countertop and turned to leave. The shorter man patted him on the shoulder—which Eren had sort of been expecting, but it was better than the small of his back—and said it was fine, thanked him for his work, and hoped he had a good night. Eren wished him the same.

He got back in his car and put the money away. Well, that definitely hadn’t been as bad as he was expecting. Certainly worth an almost $12 tip. He felt a little silly for being so on edge before coming here. As far as he was concerned, the man seemed very friendly, if sometimes overly so going by what Levi had told him. Then again, Levi wasn’t exactly a very sociable person.

He used both his feet to back out of the driveway—one foot on the brake and one on the gas so he could switch over immediately before gravity dragged him into the rear fender of this Jeep. The driveway was on a bend in the road and it was hard to see through the thick trees, so Eren just hoped and prayed no one was coming. It wasn’t a busy road, but it was still risky. Luckily he was fine, and drove back to the store without a problem.

Unfortunately, his night wasn’t yet over. 

His next delivery was in a neighborhood near Ashe Hill. It was down a dark street crammed with old, banged up cars on the sides, small saltbox houses that posed a fire hazard with how close together they were, and no streetlights. It seemed a bit ominous, but the delivery went fine as it usually did. In fact, the problem didn’t occur until he was almost all the way back to the store.

Usually when he went to that part of Ashe Hill, he took the road by the park he always ran around to get back, so he always got back onto Macon from Wyllis Field lane. Levi had been right, the light was always extra long after 8pm, so he sat there, waiting, as he always did. Not that he had much choice.

He noticed the headlights of a car pulling up in his side view mirror. He was in the lane to turn left, and while he waited he just kind of spaced out, watching the cars coming down Macon from the right. There weren’t a lot. The car that was coming up behind him pulled up in the lane to go straight or turn right and, strangely enough, the driver of the other car was looking right at him as he braked.

It was immediate, direct eye contact. Eren laughed—he thought it was a funny coincidence. He would’ve thought it was weird that the other driver was looking at him, but Eren was watching him too, so who was he to say anything? The driver of the other car, a man probably not much older than him, smiled and waved at him, and Eren waved back. 

The brunet looked away just as the light changed to green and swung left into the far right lane. He looked in his rearview mirror to see if the man next to him would go straight or right, but what he actually did instead made Eren start to panic.

The other driver pulled out slightly, clearly pausing to check the traffic around him in all directions, of which there was none, and then turned left to, presumably, follow Eren.

The younger man thanked a god he didn’t know if he believed in that it was after eight o’clock—that meant the next and final light before he reached the store was going to be green, and the other man wouldn’t be able to catch up to him. Eren pressed harder on the gas.

He thought maybe it was just a coincidence—maybe the other man had just pulled into the wrong lane, and he had always meant to go left. Maybe he suddenly changed his mind about wherever he was going and his new destination just happened to be left as well.

As Eren made a sharp, fast turn into the parking lot, it did absolutely nothing to ease his alarm when he saw the other man pull in too. Fortunately, Eren was about a hundred feet ahead of him, nearly around the back of the building as he saw the other driver, and parked in the first place he was able to. He practically jumped out of his car, making sure to lock it since he now had money inside of it, and almost ran to the back door as the man pulled into the back lot too  _ holy shit _ . 

That was  _ definitely  _ not normal.

The door to the store was being held open by the deadbolt, which Eren quickly undid so he could close the door, and now he was mostly safe. He prayed the man wouldn’t try to come into the lobby, since the back door was passcoded and he wouldn’t be able to get in. Luckily, there was a TV in the back room that showed security footage of what was going on in the lobby, in case no one happened to be in the kitchen when a customer came in. Eren watched it obsessively.

He went back to doing busy work, grabbing some lids from the stack Levi was currently working on just so he had something to do—some way to keep his hands busy while he fought of the anxiety. What if he had to take another delivery? He’d have to go back outside—and then what? He kept frantically looking up at the television, which didn’t go unnoticed by the older man next to him. Eren nearly jumped out of his skin a few minutes later when the back door opened, until he saw it was just Ymir.

Levi tapped his arm with the back of his index finger so Eren would look at him. He spoke quietly, as if the younger man was a spooked animal he didn’t want to startle.

“Hey, are you okay?” The older man’s eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I’m fine. I’m okay,” Eren said too quickly.

Levi raised an eyebrow incredulously at him, “Are you sure? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did something happen at Mancini’s?” Levi had seen Eren when he’d gotten back from that delivery, and he’d seemed fine, but he couldn’t imagine what else it could be.

Eren swallowed and quickly debated the pros and cons of fessing up to Levi in his head. He decided to just go for it before he got cold feet. 

“Well, actually, um…” Eren started, before dropping his voice to almost a whisper, “I think some guy followed me back to the store, but I don’t know why. He pulled up next to me on Wyllis Field and then followed me all the way into the back. I don’t know if he’s still there or not,” the younger man murmured worriedly.

Levi suddenly went very still and put down the lid he was wiping. He looked angry, and it frightened Eren. He’d seen the other man annoyed, stressed, pissed off even, but he’d never gotten so deadly quiet like this. If Eren hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought  _ he _ was the one in danger of Levi’s wrath.

“What does his car look like? Do you know what  _ he  _ looks like?” Levi asked very seriously. Eren felt like he was under interrogation.

He stuttered for a moment before he gave a description, “He was driving a small, dark-colored car. I don’t remember the color—probably black. He had red hair and a bushy beard. He was wearing a beanie,” That was all he could recall.

Without another word, Levi immediately headed towards the back door.

“Wait! Levi!” Eren called desperately after him. He stopped in the small hallway though, afraid to go any further in case the man was still in the back lot or saw him through the open door. The younger man was worried that Levi would get hurt if it turned physical, which it probably would, knowing the shorter man. Eren suddenly wished he knew if Levi had won or lost all those fights he mentioned getting into when he was in school.

He started anxiously pacing in the cramped space, trying to hear through the door if any kind of confrontation was going down outside. His fears were quickly quelled, however, when he heard the buttons to the door being pushed. Eren lunged to open the door for the other man.

Levi still had a frown on his face but said, “I think he left—there’s no one outside. Just our cars and the insider’s. Probably got bored,” 

Eren breathed a sigh of relief. That was honestly the first time something like that had ever happened to him. He was glad it ended so quickly and unceremoniously. Levi suddenly put a hand on his elbow as they walked into the back room.

“If something like that ever happens to you again, please tell me. Or if I’m not here then tell one of the managers. Please don’t try to hide it if you’re worried about your safety,” Levi scolded gently. Eren had never heard him take on this kind of caring tone of voice before.

“What about you? You scared the shit out of me when you went out there,” Eren countered.

“Eren, trust me when I say I would’ve been fine. I don’t think I’ve ever lost a fight in my life,” he tried to put his fears to rest.

The younger boy was only slightly comforted by that fact, “Still...You getting hurt’s not any better than me getting hurt. Don’t scare me like that,” 

Levi wanted to disagree, but he didn’t want to start an argument, so he simply said, “Well, hopefully, it’ll never happen again,”

Eren looked at him but didn’t say anything else. They went back to wiping lids together quietly. Eren stood a little closer to Levi, and Levi stood a little closer to Eren until their shoulders were almost touching. The younger man was still shaking off the adrenaline rush of the past fifteen minutes, and Levi was subtly trying to check on him. For the rest of the night, Eren tried to stay as close to Levi as he could, even if he himself didn’t realize it. Levi was cashed out first, but he waited for Eren to finish the dishes so he could walk the taller boy to his car.

They didn’t talk much after the whole incident, but as Eren got in his car, he looked up at the other man, catching his attention.

“Thank you, Levi,” he didn’t specify what for, but he didn’t need to. Levi just nodded.

“Don’t mention it. Drive safe,” and Eren did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the chapter I’ve been waiting this whole fic to write...


	8. First Hit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren has a not-quite near-death experience, tries smoking to forget about it, then has another not-quite near-death experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it’s been so long! This chapter is the longest one and also the world and my life fell apart in between this update and the last :P I had to go to work a lot, and now not at all, so I had time to finish it finally. I ran my half marathon, my hip is now healed, and now I’m getting ready for marathon training. Also I got an undercut bc I can’t go to Japan (yet) and now I’m behind a semester in college. That’s fun.
> 
> Anyway, this is the chapter that inspired this entire fic. It was originally going to be last, but then I thought of a cute way to end this fic, so it’s second-to-last. Thanks for reading~

Eren had once read that the city he lived in was one of the top ten cloudiest in the nation, which would’ve surprised him if he didn’t immediately recognize it to be true. He thought about it whenever it rained, especially when it rained at work, which was where he was headed right now. It was Friday afternoon and rush hour was just starting to kick up. This was honestly the most troublesome time for it to be raining—it always slowed everything down and Eren hated the way the streetlights reflected off the wet, shiny pavement. He hated how the visibility was always reduced and how he had to drive much more slowly or risk hydroplaning around all the curves and bends in the roads. This was the busiest day of the work week for them, and it was shaping up to be a stressful one.

Eren was only a little surprised to find everything already in full swing when he walked into the back. Eminem was playing on the Bluetooth speaker, and about four of his coworkers, including Levi, were huddled around the metal table either scraping through multiple stacks of pans, folding boxes, making more tomato sauce, or wiping piles of lids. Krista was standing by the sink trying to catch up on the massive amount of dishes from lunch. The insiders were running around the kitchen, handing out carry-out orders and working on the deliveries. Even for a Friday, it was surprising to see the board was already half full of deliveries despite it only being four o’clock. It was going to be a busy, probably stressful, but also lucrative night. Eren hoped the rain would let up soon.

Levi was working on the pans, which he didn’t look too happy about. He looked especially disgusted when he scraped one a little too hard and some of the oil splashed onto his shirt, which was otherwise impeccably clean. Eren snickered as he pulled on some disposable gloves to start oiling the ones the other man had already cleaned. Levi rolled his eyes at him, but it was not unkind.

Eren was suddenly blatantly aware of all the grease stains on his shirt.

“How do you keep your shirt so clean?” He asked the shorter man.

“A shit ton of Dawn,” he explained, “Just pour some on and rub it into all grease spots. It’s almost like magic,”

Eren would have to try that the next time he did his laundry.

The younger boy did side work and watched as the other drivers came in and out of the store, taking their deliveries and waiting until it was his turn. Luckily, his first delivery was close by, but he wasn’t able to make it a double as was often customary. His second delivery of the night was more of a middle distance, but that delivery wasn’t able to be made into a double either. Eren was hoping to use his slower road times more efficiently by taking multiple deliveries at once, but it seemed he just wasn’t having any luck. And it was only raining harder now. 

He watched as the deliveries on the board continued to climb. By the time he got back from his third delivery, it was so busy Armin had been assigned the role of figuring out which deliveries could feasibly be taken together. Depending on how you looked at it, Eren had either arrived at the very right or the very wrong time.

“Okay, Eren, you take orders 137, 139, 140, and 144,” 

“Uh...together?” The brunet had to double-check.

“Yeah, they’re all in the same subdivision,” Armin circled his finger around them all on the map.

Eren’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. A  _ quadruple _ ? Was that even allowed? Eren looked over at the hooks where the insulated bags were kept—that was another thing that tended to stress him out on busy Fridays—because of the high volumes of doubles, triples, and apparently quadruples, there sometimes weren’t enough bags. Eren dreaded the fact that he only saw two insulated bags on the hooks, plus the really clunky, huge ones that were meant for deliveries that were typically hundreds of dollars. Since those only worked well when they were actually full, he only used those if he absolutely had to. This seemed like it was going to be one of those times.

Miraculously, as Armin printed out all of the receipts he needed for his four deliveries which were all already in the hot-box, he found that each of the four orders were actually quite simple. So simple, in fact, he needn’t even get a single sauce, drink, or salad, and what’s more, he was able to fit all four deliveries into the two regularly sized bags. He would just have to make sure the itemized receipts matched the make receipts so he didn’t accidentally hand out the wrong boxes. He stacked them in the order they were to be delivered. He figured this was probably a time where it would be quickest to take them out of order, but Eren didn’t really have the time to figure out what that order was, so he went the easy way and just decided to take them in their normal numerical order. He didn’t mind if it was less efficient—he was taking  _ four  _ deliveries at once.

The first delivery was very quick—the man was waiting for him at the door. He seemed to somehow know that Eren was in a hurry and didn’t say anything beyond the basic necessities. Both of them were prepared and ready and Eren spent less than thirty seconds out of his car in total before he got back in to speed off to delivery number two. 

Delivery two was painfully normal. He rang the doorbell and waited a moment for a man to answer. He saw that his house looked rather empty, which he thought was strange, but Eren had seen weirder, so the man signed the receipt and off the brunet boy went again.

By the third delivery Eren realized it definitely would’ve been more efficient to take these out of order, since he was driving back in the direction of the first order, but it didn’t matter now. This quadruple was kind of a stretch, if he was being honest, but he was getting it done in a timely manner. So far, only a little over twenty minutes had passed. On this delivery, Eren had accidentally passed the house, so he had to take a moment to turn around. There was already a $5 tip on this order, paid by credit card, which was good because the person who answered the door was a child—probably about ten years old. Eren asked him if he could please write his name on the line right there. 

On the last delivery, the porch of this house didn’t have an overhang, which meant Eren had to get rained on while he waited for the person to answer. He was just glad he was wearing a baseball cap so the raindrops weren’t getting in his eyes so much. Eren generally tried to avoid running in the rain, and now he understood why people often wore hats for long races—it not only kept the sun out of your face, but if the weather changed for the worse you wouldn’t have to worry about getting precipitation in your eyes. 

By the time he was on his way back to the store, nearly an hour had passed, but Eren thought that he’d made pretty good time. Things were still in full swing back at the pizzeria—you had to scroll through the deliveries that were on the board if you wanted to see them all. Delivery time was now at two hours.

Eren got assigned another triple by his best friend and, funnily enough, an insider to help him with whatever he needed. It ended up being Sasha, and as he looked through the receipts he asked her to get him two sides of ranch, a side of pizza sauce, and a bottle of root beer from the front of the store while he shoved all the boxes into their respective bags. The two liters were in the back, so he grabbed one of the Pepsi’s and asked if Sasha could help carry one of the bags out to his car. 

The rain was still not letting up and Eren had mostly resigned himself to just dealing with it. It wasn’t pouring as hard as it had been, but it was still falling steadily.

It was another rather uneventful series of deliveries. Eren was kind of hoping this would keep up—if it did he would probably end up taking a personal record amount of deliveries and, hopefully, a record amount of tips. He was a bit disappointed he hardly ever got to see Levi on days like this, but he knew they were closing together again tonight—which was going to be an absolute bitch with how busy it was—but then again, it just meant they got to spend more time together at the end of the day. 

By the time he took another double, it was starting to get dark. The rain had finally let up to a light misting but the roads were still slick. The deliveries on the board slowly started to dwindle until he was only taking singles again. This time he was taking only one thin crust pizza to a house that was on the edge of the delivery zone, but if he was right about who he thought he was delivering to, he didn’t mind.

These people were regular customers. They always gave him a five dollar tip, which was a good one for the part of town they lived in and he always appreciated it. They also had a steep ditch on the side of their driveway, which they always told Eren to watch out for when he backed out, even though he always remembered because he had been there at least three or four times by now.

Eren plugged the address into his GPS, and based on the route it told him to go he thought maybe it wasn’t actually the house he thought it was. He supposed he’d just have to see.

He took a street that led him close to where Armin’s family lived, but kept going. He passed what was technically the edge of the delivery zone which he had never been down before, then his navigation told him to take a right, and he was back in the zone again. Or, rather, riding the edge of it.

Despite the new route he took, it really was the house he had expected. GPS was weird like that sometimes. Usually he came from the opposite direction when he came here. Just as he anticipated, they gave him another $5 tip and told him to watch out for the ditch, and Eren promised he would. He thought about which direction was actually shorter and found he couldn’t decide. Just to change it up a little, he decided to go back the same way he’d come. He rarely got to drive on new roads.

This turned out to be a mistake.

It was probably a combination of a lot of things. The roads were still slippery from the rain, Eren was rather unfamiliar with this road—he couldn’t remember the speed limit and it was at a pretty steep downgrade—and now that he had taken so many deliveries the stress was starting to get to him a little, and he found himself unnecessarily rushing from house to store when he didn’t have to be.

He pulled up to the stop sign at the end of the street, waiting for a break in traffic to turn left. The turn off was near the top of a hill, so it was a little hard to see cars coming from the right and he also wasn’t sure how much space he needed since he had never been this way before. Eventually, there was a decent enough break for Eren to pull out into, but he hit the gas a little harder than necessary because the car coming up behind him seemed to be going rather fast.

Eren went around a small bend, and then misjudged how severe the curve of the next one was. What happened next probably only lasted about three seconds in reality, but it felt like a lifetime to the college student.

The centrifugal force of the turn had his body careening slightly to the right, and suddenly he felt his tires slipping out from underneath him. Shit—he was hydroplaning. His car started veering into the left lane, straight into oncoming traffic. He was barely a few dozen feet in front of another car's headlights, and half in the left lane, only sliding further to the left as the milliseconds ticked by. 

Eren knew what he had to do to regain control of his car. His brakes pumped automatically, as most cars did these days, but he still knew he couldn’t slam them. He hit them as fast as he could while still showing restraint, and did the one thing he really didn’t want to do right now—turned his steering wheel into the direction his car was hydroplaning—going head to head with the car coming straight for him. 

_ Just _ before he got into a head on collision, Eren violently turned his steering wheel back to the right, nearly busting both his and the other driver’s left headlights together. Then the harsh turn caused him to start hydroplaning in the opposite direction. He was heading towards the metal barrier on the side of the road and Eren would be damned if he was going to crash into that. His brakes were already pressed halfway down, and Eren stopped showing any restraint, figuring he was slowed down enough, and slammed them the rest of the way down. His car stopped just inches from the barrier.

Eren desperately wanted to stop and take a break, just for a moment. He’d hydroplaned and almost crashed his car twice in a matter of seconds. His heart was beating out of his chest—he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. That was the closest he’d ever come to getting in a car accident when he was behind the wheel and he felt like he’d just cheated death. Eren knew he definitely wouldn’t have died if he hadn’t been able to get control of his car—he probably would’ve gotten whiplash at worst—but he’d never had to deal with something like that before, and he certainly didn’t want to do it now, especially at work. He also didn’t want his coworkers or his mother to worry about him.

Eren only gave himself about two seconds before he pulled his car back onto the pavement, not wanting to block any traffic that was behind him, especially because he and his car were physically completely fine even if his mind was still reeling. He drove much slower this time. He was mildly embarrassed. He wasn’t sure if he was a bad driver for hydroplaning in the first place, or a good one for managing to escape every collision he’d just almost gotten into. He shifted into a state where he was driving mostly on autopilot, so he could freak out internally about the scariest few seconds of his relatively short life.

He was still trying to shake off the adrenaline ten minutes later when he walked back into the store. About half the drivers had left for the night and now it was just him, Levi, and Jean once again. There were only a few more deliveries on the board which Eren was grateful for—he would appreciate a moment or two to stay in the shop. While they waited for their deliveries to be made, Jean was washing a pile of dishes and Levi had started again on the stacks upon stacks of pans. Eren decided to spend a few minutes putting away some of the dishes that had already dried and then pulled the rarely-used second scraper out of a brown plastic bin with the other miscellaneous supplies. There was no way Levi was going to be able to get through all of them by himself. 

Eren grabbed a small pan from the top of the stack and decided to use that as the receptacle for the used oil from the other pans. The younger boy stood next to Levi but otherwise didn’t seem to acknowledge his presence—his mind was still replaying the events of the almost-collision over and over again. He couldn’t believe how lucky he’d been. This night could’ve ended a lot differently—he really didn’t want to think about it, but scraping pans didn’t exactly require a lot of attention. 

Levi could clearly see Eren was frazzled by something. He hadn’t even looked at him when he’d gotten back. Levi usually at least got a casual smile, if not a quiet ‘hey’ from the other man, especially when they worked next to each other. Levi couldn’t quite be sure—maybe Eren was just in a mood. Tonight had been rather stressful after all; it had been a constant in-and-out for him for a little over five hours and now they had a ridiculous amount of outwork to do. Maybe he was just tired. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check.

“How you holdin’ up?” Levi nudged the boy with his elbow. He figured that was a pretty inconspicuous way to mask his concern.

Eren looked almost pained by the question. He let out a long sigh, “I just...I’ll tell you later. I don’t really want to talk about it,” 

Talking about it meant having to think about it, which he was trying to avoid. Just as worrying over things you couldn’t change did nothing to help, feeling anxious about what had already happened also did Eren no good. The younger boy didn’t know if he was actually going to tell Levi about it later, maybe he would if he thought it would help, but he definitely didn’t want to right now. 

Levi frowned—so something  _ was _ wrong. His concern increased incrementally, but he wasn’t going to pry since Eren clearly didn’t want to discuss it.

“Hey, Jean. You wanna connect to the speaker?” The dark-haired man asked. He figured it might help distract the other boy.

“Why? I can’t imagine you of all people would want to listen to  _ my _ music,” 

“Yeah, well, you’re right, but it’s boring in here so just humor me,” Levi replied, “That is, unless you want  _ me _ to play my shit,”

Jean huffed a laugh, “No thanks,” he said. That’s what Levi thought.

The tall man dried his hands on the apron he was wearing, got out his phone, and plucked the speaker off the shelf. He stuck it in one of the metal containers they used to store pizza toppings in to amplify the sound. 

It was true Levi wasn’t particularly enthused by Jean’s music taste but, like a radio station going through song rotations, both he and Eren were familiar with the songs Jean tended to play when he had control of the music. 

After a few minutes, Eren started singing the parts of the songs he knew under his breath. Levi watched him out of his periphery and started humming along with the other boy. Fortunately, the music was too loud for Jean to hear them over by the sink, but Eren and Levi could hear each other. 

Levi thought it was true—Eren really wasn’t that great of a singer—but it was more than tolerable. Just an average singing voice, really. But Levi found he liked it in his own way. 

Eren started bobbing his head and moving his body in rhythm to the music as he scraped the pans, occasionally taking an opportunity to wave his arms around when the song hit its chorus. Levi chuckled at him, and Eren smiled right back. The shorter man was surprised when he felt his worry lift a bit at the sight of the other boy’s grin. 

All too soon, however, Jean’s delivery was up and he had to disconnect from the speaker. Eren seemed in a bit of a better mood, but the abrupt silence was rather off-putting. After Jean left, Levi turned the speaker back on and connected his phone to it, though he took it out of the metal container and kept the volume low so it could only be heard in the back. He only played songs he knew he’d shown to Eren before.

But, as the cycle of pizza delivery goes, Levi was soon off on his own delivery, and Eren also took one last coincidental double for the night. He was overly cautious, and got back much later than he normally would have. 

When he returned to the store, Jean was blaring his music again and everyone was working overtime trying to finish cleaning everything before closing—no one wanted to stay late, of course. This time Levi was doing dishes and Jean was almost done scraping pans, so Eren got out the bucket of oil and started ladling it out as fast as he could. Connie and Hanji were in the back as well, folding more boxes for tomorrow and wiping lids. When Jean finished the pans, he made a small bucket of warm, sanitized water and wiped down all the metal tables in the back. 

Eren had to refill the oil bucket and empty it out again before he was done oiling all the pans, and then got to work sweeping while Hanji took out the trash. Levi was still doing dishes. Connie finished folding boxes and carried them up front all at once, blessedly not dropping anything, and then came back to start making the mop water. It was probably the fastest, most frenzied cleaning Eren had participated in in a long time. In the middle of mopping, Connie broke the focused silence.

“I’m gonna go smoke after this, if anyone wants to join me,”

Eren, much to everyone’s surprise and without missing a beat, spoke up,“I’m in,” he declared.

Connie’s jaw nearly dropped. Jean started laughing.

“Alright!” He cheered, “This is gonna be good. This is your first time, right?”

“...Yeah,” He was hesitant to admit.

“Awesome. I’m in too,” the tall man said to Connie.

If Eren was being honest, it was a pretty spur of the moment decision. What he was sure of, though, was that if anything could take his mind off what had happened tonight, it would probably be this. Marijuana was supposed to help with those kinds of things, right? He didn’t have anything against weed or people who smoked it—he was quite indifferent to it actually—but he figured the better shape his lungs were in the better he could run. On the other hand, he knew plenty of people at university who smoked regularly and they were fine, for the most part. Plus, he was a  _ little _ curious. He knew weed worked off the endocannabinoid system, which was also the system activated when he got a runner’s high. He wondered how it would compare. Doing it once probably wouldn’t hurt, right?

Levi originally was not going to take Connie up on his offer. If he wanted to get high, he could do it in the comfort of his own home—but he understood that always smoking by yourself could get boring. Levi didn’t particularly care one way or the other, but he figured Connie just wanted company, and Jean seemed to be his best buddy when it came to that, so Levi figured Jean would join him and he and Eren would go home when the clock struck eleven. 

However, when the younger boy announced he wanted to join them, there was no way in hell he was going to leave a high-for-the-first-time Eren in the less-than-capable hands of Connie and Jean. Especially not after that stunt Jean tried to pull last time with the nicotine pouch. Plus, it would probably be better if Levi was there, in case Eren reacted badly to it. The other boy didn’t seem like the type, but what did he know?

“Fine, I guess I’ll join too,” Levi reluctantly agreed. 

“Hell yeah! This is gonna be fun,” Connie exclaimed.

There was an excited buzz in the air for the last few minutes they spent closing up the store. It wasn’t normal—Eren knew it was because this was going to be his first time, but he didn’t know why Connie and Jean seemed to be so enthusiastic about it as well. It made him both a little more nervous and a little more thrilled. 

They were all cashed out by Hanji at the end of the night, except Connie, since he was an insider. Eren’s prediction had turned out to be right—he’d taken sixteen deliveries that night, which was a new record for him. The $143 dollars in his back pocket was also a new record. 

Levi was last to be given his tips and fees and after he clocked out all four boys made their way out into the back parking lot. Rather than get inside, they all stood in a group in front of Connie’s gray clunker—it seemed to be a nonverbal, unanimous decision, but Eren didn’t mind. Connie briefly sat in his car’s passenger seat to root through the glove compartment.

“Shit, I forgot—I’m out of papers,” The boy exclaimed, holding out a thin, empty cardboard box. 

Before they could get too discouraged, though, Jean spoke up, “I think I have a pipe in my car,”

Wow—Levi hadn’t smoked with a pipe since high school. 

They all collectively moved over to Jean’s car. He rummaged through his backseat and pulled out a bag that was supposed to be used to store shaving supplies, but pulled out a red and blue glass pipe and a grinder the size of the palm of his hand.

“Yo, let’s put some kief in,” Jean looked at Connie with a mischievous smirk. Levi interjected instead.

“Jesus Christ, are you trying to kill him?” He was referring to Eren, “If you and tweedle dum want to smoke a kief bowl, save it for after Eren taps out,” Levi looked exasperated.

“You’re no fun at all,” Jean pouted.

“Tch,” Levi rolled his eyes, “Bite me,”

Eren didn’t even know what kief was, but he trusted Levi, so he didn’t say anything.

Connie still had his grinder out as well, so they mixed their weed together in one bowl and packed it tight. It didn’t really matter though—it was all Hanji’s product. Jean offered Eren first hit and handed him the pipe and lighter.

Levi noticed neither Connie nor Jean had the theory of mind to realize Eren didn’t really know what he was doing. The smaller man remembered the first time he’d smoked using a pipe, which also happened to be the first time he’d ever smoked weed—he’d needed some assistance. Maybe it was just because he’d been fifteen and stupid, but he figured he could pass on the kindness.

“Need some help?” He asked.

“Yes, please,” Eren said politely. God, why did Levi think that was so cute?

“Here—I’ll light it for you,” the taller boy handed him the lighter, “Okay, hold the pipe in your left hand,” Levi shuffled around him so he was on Eren’s right, “See that hole right there?”

“Yeah,”

“Put your thumb on it,” Eren did so.

“Alright, when I light it, breathe in. Since this pipe is kind of clear, you’ll be able to see the smoke inside the bowl. When you see it fill up, let your thumb go and keep breathing in,” the older man explained.

“Okay,”

“Ready?”

Eren nodded and brought the pipe to his lips. Levi flicked the lighter on and held it to the top of the bowl, at which point Eren inhaled. The older man was right—the clear parts of the bowl quickly turned gray with smoke. When Eren let his thumb go, Levi took the flame away and watched as the smoke quickly disappeared from the pipe and into Eren’s lungs, who started coughing immediately. 

The smoke cloud that came out was rather large and Levi wasn’t surprised Eren hadn’t been able to hold it in. The younger boy passed the pipe to him, still coughing, doing his best not to keel over from the force of it. He almost gagged.

“Are you okay? Do you need some water?” Levi asked worriedly.

“I’m okay,” another cough, “just give me a sec,” his throat felt tight. 

“Do you feel different?” Connie asked right away.

“Not particularly…I don’t think I really got to breathe it in,” the brunet explained in a tight voice. He cleared his burning throat.

Levi took a quick hit from the pipe, held it for a moment, and blew the smoke up above them, “I’m gonna get you some water,” he said determinedly, as he passed the pipe to Jean and walked back towards the store. He returned lightning fast, just as Connie finished taking his turn.

“Here,” Levi said quietly, only meant for the other boy’s ears, as he reappeared and handed Eren a plastic cup full of water.

“Thank you,” Eren said just as softly, taking a large gulp right away. He set it on the hood of Jean’s car. 

Connie passed the pipe back to Eren.

“Think you can do it yourself this time?” Levi asked.

“I think so,” Eren said as he tried flicking the lighter on. He’d never actually held a lighter, he realized now.

He held the pipe again in his left hand, thumb covering up the little hole in the side, flicked the lighter on and held the flame against the herb. He inhaled much more softly, and took a smaller hit than he had before. He tried to hold it in his lungs for as long as he could, which wasn’t long, but still much better than last time. He passed it back off to Levi.

“How do you feel  _ now _ ?” Connie asked him again.

Eren thought about it, “I don’t know...pretty normal. Am I doing something wrong?”

“Give it a few more hits and a few more minutes,” Levi said as he blew the smoke out. This wasn’t as strong as it’d been the last time Eren had hung out with them, but it was decent. Levi was already there.

They kept passing it around. Jean finished off the first bowl, swirling the lighter around the pipe to get all the green still left on the edges and inhaled until there was no smoke collecting anymore. He hit the pipe against his shoe to ash it on the parking lot and then filled it back up. They passed it in a circle a few more times. Levi was about to finish the second bowl and quit for the night when Eren slapped his hands against his cheeks and started laughing.

“Oh my god—what the hell,” more laughter “Is this what being high is like?”

“What? What is it?” Connie jumped up. Jean perked his eyebrows in interest.

“I don’t want to alarm you guys but, like, is this even real? Am I even real?” Eren touched his hands to his chest, “This totally feels fake. Actually, it feels like a dream. Oh my god—am I in a dream right now?” The boy triple-checked his watch just to be sure. The time remained the same, so it was safe to say he was still in reality, “No? What the hell,” he kept laughing, looking all around him. 

Levi couldn’t say he wasn’t amused. Eren gave him a dopey grin. 

“Is it always like this?” The younger boy asked.

“Honestly, no,” Levi answered, “you could say it’s better the less you do it. You get used to it if you do it all the time,” and with that he finished off the second bowl. Eren made a noncommittal noise.

“So enjoy it while it lasts,” Jean added, though he had a dumb smile of his own plastered across his face.

“You want more?” Connie asked Eren as Levi handed him the empty pipe.

“Uhhh…” Eren thought about how he was feeling. Except for the fact that he was having a good time just existing, this wasn’t anything at all like a runner’s high. It really did feel much more like he was in a dream than in real life. Then again, sometimes he had dreams where he ran, and those runs always felt especially effortless. He could tell. Sometimes enough to know he was dreaming. He wondered if he went for a run right now, would it feel the same way? Would he be able to go further? Would he be able to pace himself? Would he even need to?

“Eren,” Connie prompted after an extended silence.

Eren abruptly forgot what the hell he was supposed to be thinking about. Everything that he’d thought about more than ten seconds ago was suddenly locked behind a mental wall.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“I’m gonna go with ‘no’,” Levi answered for him. Jean and Connie chuckled. 

Oh yeah. Eren remembered now.

“Yeah, what Levi said,'' he hadn’t really formed an opinion yet, but he trusted the dark-haired man. He was probably right. Eren sometimes didn’t know his limits, and he was certainly in no state to judge them right now.

They kept conversing for a while—they laughed too loudly at jokes that were only mildly funny and Eren had an errant thought that Levi looked especially lovely when he laughed. He suddenly wished he’d been the one who’d made Levi laugh. Eren often lost track of the conversation and spaced out, especially when no one was speaking directly to him. He made the socially appropriate responses even though half the time he was lost in his own thoughts and had no idea what they were talking about. He just followed Levi’s lead, for the most part. Regardless, he couldn’t deny he was having a good time. He was certainly glad to spend more time with Levi, especially outside of work. Even if they were still in the back parking lot.

Eventually, Jean had decided that he was ready to go home, and Connie seemed to agree with him. They were tired from the long night, and they wanted to go back home and chill out for the rest of the evening. They all bid each other good night, and Eren and Levi made their way over to Eren’s car so Jean and Connie could pull out. 

Eren suddenly remembered he would have to go home at some point too. Shit—how would he hide from his mom? Wait, no, she would definitely be asleep by now. He felt relieved. But wait—he’d have to drive home. Shit—he couldn’t drive like this with other cars on the road. How did Levi drive like this? Then he remembered it was almost midnight, and Eren lived less than five minutes away. There wasn’t going to be anyone else on the road. It was only—he counted—four left turns to his house. Shit—left turns were the most dangerous ones. Oh, but there wasn’t going to be anyone on the roads. It would be fine. Maybe. God, maybe he should just run home and run back to the store in the morning to get his car before his parents got up. How long was this going to last?

Levi noticed the younger boy looked troubled by something. He figured he knew what it was.

“You okay? I can drop you off if you want,” Levi offered.

All at once, Eren felt a new problem coming over him—one he was unfortunately quite familiar with and probably should’ve anticipated. He didn’t know whether to reply to Levi’s question or warn him of what was about to happen, so instead, probably because he was high, he quickly turned to walk to the driver’s side of his car with only a loud “Um,” before he went. Levi followed him, which was what Eren had intended with that vague statement.

Eren now realized he hadn’t eaten in nearly twelve hours. He hadn’t had time to eat during his shift, and he’d forgotten he was even hungry after he’d gotten high. The problem was, ever since he was a kid, he was prone to passing out if his blood sugar got too low. His mother always told him about the first time he’d ever fainted, which was before breakfast once when he was a toddler, and being his mom’s first and only child, she’d panicked and rushed him to the hospital. The doctors determined he simply needed some food, and he was sent home with a cookie and a juice box. 

Including that time, which he didn’t remember, Eren had only fully passed out three times in his life. Once when he’d gotten his blood drawn—also as a small child, where he ended up hitting his head on the bathroom sink  _ and _ the wall—and once after he’d gotten his wisdom teeth out and spent the whole day asleep on painkillers. When dinner had rolled around, he hadn’t eaten anything except a cup of applesauce since the night before. He’d passed out sitting completely upright at the dinner table, eyes wide open, and woke up screaming, disoriented, scared by the look of horror on his mom’s face, confused as to how he had woken up with his eyes already open, and with no memory of falling asleep in the first place. He blamed such an unnatural reaction to losing consciousness completely on the OxyContin.

Every other time he’d almost fainted, he could usually fix the problem by just sitting down, which was what he was trying to do now. He only ever fully lost consciousness when it happened rapidly. Fortunately for him, he almost always tended to pass out very slowly, and over the years he found it very strange, examining the experience while trying to bring himself back from the brink. He’d felt the lightheadedness coming on. He’d thought it might pass, but quickly realized it was only getting worse. He didn’t want to alarm Levi by sitting down on the wet, dirty pavement, so he was going to sit in the driver’s seat of his car instead, and then he would explain. 

The weed certainly wasn’t helping this situation. It was making him quite stupid, actually. By the time Eren got to the driver’s side door, his peripheral vision was slowly disappearing. He supposed he was used to grabbing the door handle without looking directly at it, because right now he was staring over the roof of his car, but without his peripheral vision he couldn’t see the goddamn handle and was just grasping blindly for it. He could feel his body trembling and growing weaker by the second. He was really going to faint in this parking lot and crack his skull open if he didn’t sit down, so he kept grappling blindly but in wider circles and—bingo, got it—he flung the door wide open and fell diagonally across the seat.

Much to Eren’s horror, this only slowed the progression of losing his consciousness instead of stopping it. He tried to sink down more horizontally by laying nearly into the passenger seat, but it wasn’t working. He wasn’t going to have a choice in this was he?

Eren could barely see now, but he could hear Levi, muffled, right next to him. He sounded distressed, he wanted to tell him he would be fine, that this had happened to him before, but he was losing the energy and the coherency.

“Eren! Are you okay? What’s wrong?” 

Eren wished he knew sign language. He wished Levi knew sign language. It would be so much easier to just move his hand than talk right now. 

“I need…” Eren needed food. They worked at a pizza place, but it wasn’t like there were pre-made pizzas already in the store. In fact, the only ready-to-eat food in the shop were the pizza toppings themselves, but Eren didn’t expect Levi to bring him out a box of pepperoni or something, so instead he said, “...calories. Anything,” he was desperate.

“Okay, hold on, I’m gonna get you a Gatorade or something,”

Yes, they had drinks. They had soda. They had sugary drinks. Perfect. 

Abruptly, there was silence, and Eren immediately, deeply regretted that Levi had left. Without his voice, or the sound of his footsteps, Eren could hear absolutely nothing. He tried to listen for the metal back door opening and closing, but he heard nothing. He had no idea where Levi was or when he would be back. He hoped it would be soon. Every passing second suddenly felt like an eternity. The only thing he could see now was a bit of the night sky and the top of the trees out of his windshield, but even that was rapidly fading to black. He felt completely deaf, and he was nearly completely blind, but he was still hanging on to consciousness by a thread. He wondered if he should close his eyes—he didn’t want to scare Levi like he had scared his mother when he’d lost consciousness with his eyes open, but he also knew if he closed his eyes he would be lost to the void for sure. He was worried Levi would make him go to the hospital or something if he fully lost consciousness, not to mention he absolutely hated the disorientation of reawakening without knowing how much time had passed, even if it was only a few seconds. He was trying to avoid that at all costs.

By now, his sight was fully gone. He was high as a kite, he couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear, he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t even sure if he  _ was _ conscious. But surely he must be if he could question it. His whole being was focused on staying awake, but he wasn’t going to last much longer. It was quite possibly the hardest thing he’d ever done. He wondered if this was what dying was like. Then, all at once, miraculously, Levi’s muted voice pierced through and, like that in itself was the cure, a hole in Eren’s vision opened back up. He could see his rearview mirror now.

“Here,” Levi said from far away.

Eren still couldn’t see him, but he shakily reached his hand out towards the voice, and the familiar shape of a Gatorade bottle was placed in his hand. Levi had broken the seal for him already.

Eren’s vision returned almost as soon as he started chugging. He didn’t pull the bottle from his lips until he’d drank over half of it. Levi was looking at him very apprehensively and Eren hated it.

Levi had never seen something like that, and it was terrifying to see it happen to Eren. It was quite bizarre. Eren had been talking to him and doing things, but his eyes weren’t moving, like he’d suddenly become blind. He had no doubt that he had. Then he’d slumped over, one leg hanging out of his car, his upper body leaning against the side of the passenger seat, one arm sprawled out on that side. 

“Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m okay, I promise,” he tried to reassure the older man. Strangely, Eren’s hearing was less quick to return. Everything still sounded like there was cotton in his ears. It would take about ten more minutes before it returned to normal. 

Levi looked skeptical.

“Are you alright to stand?” He asked.

Eren wanted to prove to the other man that he was indeed fine, so he quickly answered, “Yes,” 

Levi reached his hand out, which Eren gratefully grabbed onto and slowly hauled himself out of the driver’s seat. The shorter man quickly let go and moved to place his hand tentatively in the middle of Eren’s back, ready to catch him in case he were to fall. Eren hadn’t really considered the implications of why Levi wanted him to stand until he started leading him in the direction of his own car.

“C’mon, let’s go get you something to eat,” he said as he led the taller boy along.

“You don’t have to do that,” Eren protested immediately, “Really. I’m alright,” he wanted to say he was fine to drive home but realized that was probably a lie—only because he was still high, though. Even though that experience had sobered him up somewhat, he wasn’t sure if he could trust his judgement just yet. He could still get home on foot, though. Probably.

“Eren, please. I’d feel like an asshole if I let you go home in this condition. At least give me the peace of mind that there’s a burger or something inside of you keeping you conscious at the wheel before you risk driving,”

Eren didn’t have much of a retort for that, and he knew any more of his protesting would be weak at best, so he stayed quiet instead and let Levi open the passenger door for him. 

“Watch your head,” he murmured lowly as Eren got in.

The younger boy sunk tiredly into the passenger seat, cheek leaning against the strap of his seatbelt. He let out a deep sigh, feeling his weak body relax. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to sleep. 

“You’re not gonna conk out on me again, are you?” Levi asked as he started his car.

Eren sat up a little more straight, “No,” he watched as Levi pulled out of the parking lot, “Where are we going?”

“The only place that’s open around here after midnight—McDonald’s,” 

Eren could think of no greater pleasure at the moment than a warm box full of chicken nuggets and let out a soft but enthusiastic “Hell yes,” which caused Levi to look over and chuckle at him. 

Hardly five minutes later they had sped down far enough on Macon to reach the McDonald’s that sat across from the gyro shop that was once Eren’s old workplace. They pulled up to the drive-thru, which was answered by a lady who sounded clearly bored with her job. Eren didn’t blame her. 

“What do you want?” Levi asked him.

“Ten chicken nuggets...and fries,” he added as an afterthought. 

“You want anything to drink?” 

Eren just shook the half-full Gatorade bottle he still had at him.

Levi, instead, ordered him twenty chicken nuggets and a large fry, which Eren began to protest at before he was quickly shushed, then ordered a burger and a coke for himself. The drive-thru worker told them to pull up to the second window. As Levi went around the corner of the building Eren started digging through his back pocket.

“At least let me pay for it,” the younger man insisted.

“Absolutely not. This is McDonald’s, not a five-star restaurant. I’m not exactly going bankrupt here,” Levi announced as he pulled out the cash wad from his own back pocket. 

The bills in Eren’s pocket were all jumbled, which was a real shame, considering he was literally going to fight Levi over this if only he could pull out enough cash to cover the bill fast enough. Unfortunately, Levi barely had to reach into his own pocket to slip a $20 bill out and handed it to the lady who had taken their order with a generous “keep the change,”

“Levi!” Eren pouted at him.

“Just shut up and enjoy your nuggets, brat,” he said with no real venom, handing Eren the paper bag with their order inside. Levi jammed his straw into his drink and pulled off to the side of the parking lot. Eren began rustling through the bag to distribute their food.

“Have you ever taken a delivery down Thistlecrest?” The older man asked him.

Eren gave him a confused look, “No, why?”

“I wanna show you something,” he said vaguely and pulled back onto the street, heading back in the direction they’d come from. Eren pulled out the box with his chicken nuggets inside.

“Where is it?” He asked, opening up a treasure chest of pure gold.

“It’s way down on Baker-Millard, you might’ve passed by it before,”

Eren popped a whole chicken nugget in his mouth and nearly moaned. Eren was suddenly extremely grateful Levi had doubled his order. He had been right, as usual.

“Fuck, I’m starving,” he said while he chewed, “why does this taste so much better than normal?” He estimated he was going to demolish the entire box in under five minutes.

“Because you’re high and you just passed out hardly fifteen minutes ago,”

Oh yeah. Eren forgot munchies were a thing. Also he  _ was _ literally starving, if his body’s previous reaction was anything to go by. It was so good it was like he could feel the dopamine being released in his brain. 

“Hey, I did  _ not _ pass out,” Eren argued, “I very much made it a point to stay awake, thank you,” it had taken an insane amount of willpower—he was not going to have his efforts belittled.

“Eren, you looked fucking dead,” Levi recalled when he’d returned to the younger boy’s car—Eren had been statue-esque in his slumped stillness and his eyes were completely unfocused. There was nothing to suggest the other boy even registered Levi’s presence until he’d spoken up.

“Yeah, but I heard you, didn’t I? Don’t criticize my methods,” he joked.

“You’re going to be the death of me, I swear,” Levi muttered. 

By the time they passed through the intersection where Eren suspected Pfeiller ended and Baker-Millard began, he was halfway through the box. These were not going to last to wherever they were going.

True to his prediction, by the time Eren spotted the street sign that signified Thistlecrest was coming up on the right of the three-way intersection, there was nothing but crumbs left. He mourned his loss. 

The street was quite dark; there were no streetlights whatsoever, but it wasn't as ominous as the delivery in that one part of Ashe Hill had been. The houses seemed pretty middle class. They were spaced further apart and there were very few cars parked on the street. Even though they had gone slightly downhill to get to this street, Eren could still tell they must’ve been somewhat high in elevation because the sky seemed to stretch on and on behind the houses at the end of the side streets, as if they were sitting near a cliff.

This street in itself was full of rolling hills. Eren had never been down this way before, but he liked the wide-open feeling of it. He thought sunsets here probably looked very beautiful. 

“Keep looking out the left,” Levi said as they crested one last hill. There was now a very long, but not too steep downhill stretched out before them. 

Eren looked in Levi’s direction, but all he saw were small houses situated between dense forest that was too thick to see through, especially in the dark. Eren kept watching.

Suddenly, as Levi let gravity drag his car faster down the hill, Eren’s breath was stolen from his lungs. Like a veil was abruptly lifted from in front of his face, the trees completely vanished and the lights of the city in the valley below them shone brightly. Eren could see all the way to the hills on the horizon—he’d had no idea there was such a great view of the city so close to his home. He felt entranced by the twinkling city lights as he observed the quiet nightlife slowly moving along far down below them. 

Levi slowed down and pulled off the side of the road. They had a perfect view here. Eren had never been afraid of heights, but he was not fond of the lack of a guardrail to keep cars from going over the edge. At least they were already parked.

“Wow,” the younger boy breathed.

“The first time I drove by here I nearly crashed my car because I was too busy looking out the window,” Levi chuckled, “It really takes you by surprise,” 

“No kidding,” 

They sat in a comfortable silence, simply admiring the sleepy town below them. Eren noticed the grid pattern of the overhead street lamps and watched the streetlights change from green to yellow to red and back again. He followed the occasional head or tail lights of a car until it disappeared behind the buildings or went too far into the distance. It was times like these he marveled at human society. The way the streets were organized, the way they glowed in the deep dark of the night sky, the way everyone was living their own individual lives—most of them asleep right now, all dreaming different dreams. The way Eren was able to watch all of it happening below him, unbeknownst to anyone else but Levi. 

The younger man turned quickly towards his dark-haired coworker.

“Levi, are we friends?” He wondered.

He thought it sounded a bit dumb as soon as it left his mouth, but he wanted to know what Levi thought. Eren thought they were, but they never spent time together outside of work, unlike a lot of their coworkers. Jean and Connie often went to bars and clubs together. Krista and Ymir sometimes joined them, and he knew they’d spent the weekend together a few weeks ago at a state park nearby that Eren had always wanted to go to. Reiner often invited people to his house to watch sports games, especially Bertholdt and Annie. Eren only ever hung out with Armin outside of work, but they had already been friends. Other than that, he seemed to spend the most time around Levi when he was at work, but nothing beyond that, except right now, if that even counted. 

Levi clucked his tongue and shook his head, like he thought Eren was an idiot. He chuckled lightly.

“I’d say so. Why? You want a bracelet or something to prove it?” 

“Yes,” Eren answered immediately, and then laughed to show he was joking. It got another light laugh from the man sitting next to him. Eren smiled a little wider. 

The brunet looked down at his feet and remembered there was still a large fry sitting in the paper bag. He wasn’t particularly hungry anymore, but the thought of more food still seemed very pleasing, so he dug it out. He shoved two in his mouth at once, and that was all it took before he found himself unable to stop.

“Before you inhale all of those,” Levi spoke up, “Mind letting me have a few?”

Eren couldn’t deny him even if he’d wanted to. He still wanted to pay Levi back, at the very least for his part of the meal. For now it seemed a few fries would have to do. He grabbed a couple out of the box and held them out toward the older man’s face. Levi seemed surprised for a moment, but recovered and grabbed them out of his hand with his mouth. Both men snickered at each other. Eren kept looking out on the town, eating his fries but slower this time, occasionally feeding one to Levi. 

“Hey Levi,”

“What’s up?”

“What do you do when you're not at work?” 

Eren realized he didn’t know what Levi liked to do outside of his job. Actually, now that he thought about it, Eren knew he himself didn’t spend much time around his coworkers outside of work, but he had no idea if Levi did. 

“Honestly? Not a lot. Mostly I go to the gym,”

Eren couldn’t say he was surprised. Levi had very nice arms. He also tended to wear skinny jeans, and Eren was not above admiring Levi’s muscular thighs and shapely ass when he thought he could get away with it. He bet the older man also had good calves. Oh god—he bet he had absolutely shredded abs too. Eren suddenly went red at the thought of a shirtless Levi. He’d be drooling if he hadn’t turned away, faking a cough to buy himself some time to think about literally anything else, before this became a problem.

Levi had caught Eren checking him out on multiple occasions, not that the younger boy had been aware. Levi was surprised to find he didn’t mind. He  _ did _ have a nice body, after all, but maybe he was just being vain. Regardless, he liked the attention, at least when it was coming from Eren.

When the younger man recovered enough, he asked, “What gym do you go to?”

“The one up on Pfeiller,” he jerked his thumb behind him, “right off the exit from 265,”

“Oh. I didn’t know there was a gym there,”

“Yeah, it’s kind of hidden in the back. A lot of old people go there. I don’t know why. Not that it really matters. I’m just amazed whenever I see someone there that doesn’t have an AARP membership,”

“Do you like to run?” Eren asked a bit eagerly.

“Yeah,” Levi laughed to himself, “Not as much as you, though,”

“How many miles a week do you run?”

“In a week?” He thought about it for a moment, “I don’t know—probably about fifteen or something,”

Eren hummed and nodded before Levi continued.

“I know you can do that in one go, though,” he teased and smirked at the younger man, hitting him on the knee as he said it. 

“That’s still good though!” Eren exclaimed, “Especially considering for most people it’s zero,”

Levi chuckled to himself again, “I suppose that’s true,” Eren fed him the last fry.

“I should get a gym membership,” Eren said.

Being an endurance runner and considering he didn’t really lift weights, Eren was much more lean than he was muscular. Even his legs weren’t as thick as the older man’s. He figured weightlifting might benefit his running, he just wasn’t sure exactly in what way. If he had bigger quads, for example, it would add more weight to him, but he could probably get up hills easier. It would probably make him more powerful, but not necessarily faster. He’d also probably be able to store more energy in his body. What he was really neglecting though were his poor arms. 

“Hey, arm wrestle me,” the younger boy put his elbow on the armrest in between their seats. 

Levi quirked his eyebrow but complied. He shifted and put his elbow next to Eren’s and grabbed his hand. It was a lot softer than his own.

The dark-haired man started, “Ready, set, go!” 

Levi took him down in a matter of seconds, though the other boy’s effort was valiant. If Eren thought about that too much he was sure to get red again, so instead he just reiterated that he really should get a gym membership.

“You can come with me sometime, if you want,” Levi offered, “I’ve got a couple of guest passes I’ve never used,”

“Really?” Eren seemed excited. 

“Yeah, why not?”

Eren beamed at him, “Okay,”

They kept talking well into the night, until Eren’s high mostly wore off and he was left doing his best to fend off sleep. Levi, on the other hand, seemed perfectly awake, although he was a bit quieter. 

“Want me to drop you off at home?” The older man asked. It was on his way anyway.

“No, that’s okay, I think I’m alright to drive now, and I’d rather not have my parents asking where my car is if they get up before me,” Eren yawned, “You can just drop me off in the parking lot,”

“Alright then,” Levi agreed softly.

The older man drove back to the shop and dropped Eren off right next to his car. 

“Need me to get out and show you where the door is?” The dark-haired man teased relentlessly, referring Eren’s blind fumbling hours before.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Eren rolled his eyes but smiled anyway, “I think I can take it from here,”

“Okay. Drive safe. Text me when you get home,”

“I live not even five minutes away,” Eren could honestly drive home with his eyes closed at this point.

“And I don’t even care,” Levi retorted, “Call me if you need anything,”

“I think I’ll be okay,”

“Alright...Have a good night, then,”

“You too. And thanks for the food,” Eren called as he stepped out of Levi’s car.

“Anytime,” he said simply and waved goodbye as Eren closed the car door.

The older man sped off as Eren started the ignition with an unusual contented feeling blooming in his chest. The night had certainly been eventful, to say the least, but Eren didn’t regret a single thing that had happened. He’d gladly do it all over again, if he was being honest. 

Eren needed to get gas, but he really just wanted to be at home in bed, so he decided he’d fill up before work the next day instead. He threw his car in park when he made it into his driveway and trudged up to his room. He barely managed to shoot Levi a text that read only ‘home’ before his eyelids were dragged closed.

There was a small pink heart on the text message when he woke up the next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you for reading, and I would also really like to know your thoughts on this one <3


	9. Kobe!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren shoots his shot, literally and figuratively.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for this chapter taking this long to post, and I’m not even happy with it. I apologize. On the bright side there’s at least a 50/50 chance I’ll write a coronavirus epilogue bc I still b workin and, naturally, more stupid things keep happening that I want to write about. In case I don’t, welcome to the end of the least-serious yet somehow longest thing I’ve ever written. If you’ve made it this far, thank you.

There were very few ways to earn clout among his coworkers at the pizzeria. One way, of course, was by being on the leaderboard in Tetris. Unfortunately, Jean held most of those spots and Eren was no Tetris aficionado, so he had very little chance to gain status that way—not that he was particularly concerned about it in the first place. The second way, however, was anything that involved throwing an object into some sort of hole, like some modified version of basketball.

There were the everyday occurrences—namely throwing things in the trash can from wherever you were standing to wherever the trash can was. There were no stakes involved in this kind of game—it was simply borne of convenience. Why walk around the table to throw away a pair of gloves when you could just chuck them across the room and most likely make it in. 

Ymir went to do exactly that—and missed by a considerably wide margin. Sometimes it was better to just roast yourself before someone else did it for you.

“Shit,” she exclaimed.

“Scrub,” Connie taunted her.

“That was pretty trash,” Annie also commented.

Ymir grumbled a quiet “shut up” as she made the walk of shame to pick up the pair of gloves that fell onto the floor.

Really the only stake was a minute of injured pride. But there were worse fates.

These kinds of games were always getting reinvented when business was slow, and the risks were always changing. Eren was never really sure how these things happened or who thought them up in the first place, but it certainly passed the time. 

Connie was known to have a strong aversion to anchovies, as did most of Eren’s coworkers, but the boy with the buzz cut was particularly vocal about it one June night and so, naturally, it was used against him.

That was how Eren, Levi, Reiner, Connie, and Jean found themselves in the parking lot trying to chuck onions bigger than baseballs into the square hole on the side of the dumpster. The rules were, if you made it in the hole, the person of your choice had to eat an anchovy. Connie was everyone’s person of choice. 

There were sometimes defense measures put in place for people like Connie. If someone made it in and you were picked to eat the anchovy, you were allowed a singular redemption shot. If you also made it in, you were safe. 

Reiner overestimated the target, and his onion landed somewhere in the tall grass behind the bin. Eren’s onion fell short of the dumpster and got a bit scraped up on the pavement, otherwise remaining mostly whole. Levi wound back like a baseball pitcher and sent his onion flying, just barely missed the square hole on the back of the dumpster, hitting slightly to the left and exploding with a loud bang on the metal. Everyone started chattering about how close he’d been and how much force he had to have used to obliterate an onion like that. Pieces of it were scattered all over the back lot. Eren wondered if there was some sort of stick or pipe they could use to play baseball. Or, rather, just destroy onions in midair with.

Jean’s onion actually made it in and everyone, except Connie, began cheering. 

However, in what was later considered the comeback of the century, Connie actually redeemed himself, his onion following almost the exact same angle and path that Jean’s had. It was almost scary. It felt like everyone collectively lost their minds witnessing it. A chorus of dumbfounded cursing rose up.

“Suck it!” Connie called to Jean, sticking a finger in his chest “I should make you eat an anchovy,”

“That’s not how this works!” Jean retorted. 

They went back inside and got a few more onions, but the risk of being forced to eat anchovies was gone now at Connie’s successful redemption. No one was going to make him go through double jeopardy after that. Eren and Levi were still contesting to see who could get an onion into the dumpster first—Levi won on his second attempt—and Jean and Reiner had turned it into a distance-throwing competition with Connie as the referee. Reiner won by a long shot—literally—nearly hitting the drive up ATM’s in the bank parking lot next door. This was promptly followed by a frenzied, laughter-filled return back inside before someone noticed.

Sometimes, however, the stakes were actually rewards. On another slow night, Connie and Sasha were both vying for the chance to leave early and had somehow roped Armin into their game as well. Normally, this was decided on who got to work first, but they were both scheduled for the exact same shift, even clocking in the same minute, and since there wasn’t a need for both of them to close they decided to settle it with a modified bottle-flipping basketball combo. They made the rules up as they went along.

Eren and Levi were both the closers on the driver list, and although they never said it, neither felt an inclination to try to leave and part from each other early, so they elected to watch. Armin couldn’t actually win this game since he was the manager for the night and he had to lock up the store, but they managed to convince him to participate anyway. 

The set up was fairly simple. Someone’s half empty bottle of Mountain Dew was sitting on the table, so that was the “ball”. In order to get permission to leave early, you had to stand behind the metal table in the back room, and throw the bottle into the trash can that was placed in front of the oven all the way in the kitchen, and the bottle had to flip once on the way over. One person had to stand in between the trashcan and the oven to knock away any bottles that strayed too far. Redemption was allowed, although in this case it was only used as a way to cancel out the previous person’s win.

As time went on and no one was able to make it into the trash can, or someone else was always making a redemption shot, new rules were added. If the bottle hit the ceiling, you lost your next turn. If you threw the bottle with your non-dominant hand and made it in, you won automatically—no redemption allowed. 

Armin actually won twice; once with his dominant hand and once with his non-dominant, so it was a shame he wasn’t actually allowed to leave. 

After many attempts, with a few shots nearly knocking out a light fixture and quite a few that slid all the way under the oven to the other side of the store, Sasha finally made it in with her dominant hand and Connie missed the redemption shot.

“Okay, sweep the lobby and you can go,” Armin relented. 

Throughout the course of the summer, many of these kinds of games were played. Most often it was chucking things into the trashcan from far away. Sometimes it was kicking things into the trash can, which usually ended poorly. Sometimes it was just a simple game of bottle-flipping. Once it was trying to throw pepperonis so hard against the wall that they stuck for three seconds or more. Annie was very good at that, for some reason, and she was the only one able to consistently make them stick. Another time it was Levi tossing cheese puffs across the room to Eren, who had to catch them in his mouth, hands behind his back. 

The most prestigious game of all, however, was get-the-cherry-tomato-in-the-soap-container, made even more prestigious in late May when someone accidentally broke the soap container.

This game was probably played at least once a week by Eren’s estimations. On the far wall in the back room was a sink, a paper towel dispenser, and a soap dispenser attached to the wall. Usually they played this game with the top of the soap container off, but as it had been broken, there was now a small hole in the top corner near the wall. The angle at which they threw the cherry tomato—diagonally from across the metal table—and the way the paper towel dispenser was positioned made it exceptionally hard to angle the shot correctly, though it was not impossible. Both Reiner and Jean had proven that over the past few months, though they were the only people that had been able to make such a shot at all.

Eren had recently become a little bit obsessed with winning this game. Levi had told him back when he’d first started working there that if Eren made such a shot, he’d do whatever the younger boy wanted. At first, there wasn’t anything Eren wanted Levi to do for him, but as the months progressed he slowly realized there  _ was _ one thing, and ever since the thought had popped into his head he couldn’t get it out of his mind. 

School was due to start in just under a month, and with every passing shift his chance at making this shot was dwindling. He had to make this before he left for the school year. He supposed there was no real reason he couldn’t ask Levi this even if he never made it in, but in his 20 year old brain, it would be much more charming to ask such a thing if there was a grand gesture to go with it, if throwing a cherry tomato into some soap could be called a grand gesture. Maybe Eren just wanted the reassurance that Levi couldn’t refuse.

His chance finally came the first week in August. 

Eren had just walked into the back to clock in for the day, and already nearly everyone in the store was huddled in the spot near the corner of the metal table and the hot boxes—a few small tomatoes scattered around. Eren clocked in a lined up.

Since these obviously weren’t official events, not everyone was aiming for the soap container. Some were aiming for small cups or plastic receptacles on the shelves above the sink, some were aiming for the other sink in the room where they stored unfolded pizza boxes and extra drinks. Eren had his sights set though, and it seemed Levi did too. Eren was up after him.

“You know, if  _ I  _ make it in, you have to do whatever  _ I  _ want,” Levi reminded him.

“That’s not what you said in May,” 

“It was implied. It’s only fair, you know,” the older man smirked. 

His tomato bounced off the top of the soap container. 

“Damn,” he hissed under his breath. 

So far no one had been able to make it into the soap container since Jean had back in late June, and it was starting to feel impossible. No one was making any of their shots, although Connie had managed to knock his targeted cup over on the shelf and Ymir had made it into the stock room sink, although the tomato bounced out every time—once even into the trash can, which would’ve been impressive if that’s what she’d meant to do. 

For whatever reason though, as Eren approached the table corner and took his position to make the overhand shot, he felt a wave of total confidence come over him. It wasn’t like deja vu or some sort of psychic premonition, it was even cockiness. It was just the simple knowledge and reassurance that as soon as the tomato left his fingertips, Eren could practically see the trajectory it was taking and knew that baby had a one-way ticket to soap city. 

The tomato made a soft, sticky  _ plop _ into the pink soap—it hadn’t even touched the edges of the plastic, which was practically absurd, and then everyone started whooping and hollering.

“Holy shit!” Connie yelled, already on his way over to pluck it out of the little plastic box on the wall, “I’ve never actually seen someone make it in before,”

“Welcome to the club,” Jean pat him on the back. Eren nearly rolled his eyes at the condescending tone the taller man used as he said it, but he decided to settle for feeling smug as he looked over to Levi.

Eren couldn’t have been more satisfied. He spotted the smaller man who was standing by the flour bags, smirked, and winked at him. Levi simply shook his head with a look that said  _ oh god, what have I gotten myself into _ . 

Eventually, the party was broken up by multiple ringing phones and Hanji ordering someone to pick them up, since she was the only one actually doing any work at the moment. Everyone dispersed until it was just Eren and Levi standing in the back. The younger boy picked up some lids stacked on the table near Levi and bumped their hips together.

“Hey,”

“Hey,”

“What was that about doing whatever you wanted?” Eren teased.

“Okay, okay, you got me,” Levi lifted his hands in mock surrender, “what is my punishment, your majesty,” he joked.

Eren took a quick look behind him to make sure they were alone, and smiled at the older boy. Levi was fully expecting for Eren to have him do something like wash the dishes or mop the floors for a month. Truth be told, if Eren had made such a miraculous shot earlier in the summer, he probably would’ve chosen something like that. But now he had a different idea.

“Oh c’mon, I’m not gonna punish you. At least, I certainly don’t intend for it to be a punishment,” he was still smiling.

Levi gave him a dubious look, “Well—out with it,” he urged.

Eren’s grin grew wider, feeling bold, even as his cheeks pinked a bit.

“Go on a date with me,”

That was, well, it wasn't the  _ very _ last thing Levi expected to hear come out of Eren’s mouth, but it was pretty far down the list if he was being honest. With how flustered Eren got when Levi even vaguely flirted with him, he was surprised the younger boy had the balls to ask him out. Levi had assumed if someone was going to make a move, it was going to have to be him. He’d been wrestling with the idea for weeks, not that he was going to tell Eren that.

Levi was mortified at the fact that he could feel his own face going red, and that he knew Eren could see it because the younger boy actually started giggling. Levi’s mouth opened and closed a few times, no noise forthcoming.

“Well?” Eren prompted.

Levi covered his face with both hands and groaned through his palms, “Fuck—I mean, at this point I can’t exactly say no, can I?” Not that he wanted to, “Whatever, fuck it, yes, I’ll go on a date with you. Fuck. Yes,” he rambled. He was doing a terrible job trying to seem as aloof as he always had been. He was never this flustered, it had just taken him by surprise. He never expected Eren to be so direct about it—there wasn’t even any kind of preamble. The taller boy laughed and— _ oh god _ —wrapped his arms around Levi, giving him a quick, but tight hug. A work-appropriate hug. 

“Thank you,” he said. 

Levi never resembled a tomato more than at that moment.

“Oh god, what did you do to me? Go, go take a delivery or something,” he pushed lightly at Eren’s shoulders when he let go, trying to save face. Levi was about to combust internally, “is that a phone ringing? Go answer the phone,” he turned the other boy around and started pushing him towards the computers. Eren just gave another hearty laugh. Levi tried to ignore how the sound tugged at a heartstring. At least Eren wasn’t looking at him anymore.

“Okay, I get it, I’ll text you the details later,” Eren said as he scampered off. 

Levi turned immediately to the sink, ready to do dishes and hide his face from anyone passing by. Instead, he stared into the water with a stupidly fond smile lighting up his face. He felt like he was back in middle school and one of his classmates had just told him that his crush liked him back, even though it had been pretty clear even from the beginning that the younger boy had always had a thing for him. Levi just hadn’t been sure how deep it really went. 

When the Eren left to take a delivery a few minutes later, Levi regretted literally pushing him away, even if it was just out of embarrassment. He was suddenly all too eager to spend as much time in the other boy’s presence as he could. Eren was going to be the death of him, but it would be just as sweet as the boy himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a miscellaneous note I wanted to mention, but I swear sometimes this fic is more like a prophecy. For example, we do play Tetris a lot, but I made up the A-S-S thing (it’s a classic after all) but literally like two weeks later I watched one of the high school boys get the new high score and he IMMEDIATELY typed ASS as his initials (the other initials were all TP and BUT, btw). Also after I wrote chapter 3 I went back to the horse house and they redeemed themselves by giving me more dollars than horses (unless they have a 5th horse idk about). ALSO I did cross the finish line of my race to shinzo wo sasageyo purely by chance and I nearly cried fr lmao. There’s probably some more stuff i’m forgetting.
> 
> ANYWAY thank you to everyone who left a kudos and/or comment <3333 and lmk if u want that epilogue


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